l66 maine agricultural experiment station. i909. 



Chief Requirements Oe, The Law. 



Kind of Seeds Coming Under the Law. The law applies to 

 every lot of seeds, containing one pound or more, of cereals, 

 grasses, forage plants, vegetable and garden plants, but does 

 not apply to sweet corn, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. 



The Guaranty. Every lot of seed sold, offered or exposed 

 for sale must be accompanied by a written or printed guaranty 

 of the percentage of purity. Dealers may base their guaranty 

 upon tests conducted by themselves, their agents, or by the 

 Director of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station ; pro- 

 vided, that such tests shall be made under such conditions as 

 the said director may prescribe. The rules for testing the 

 purity of seeds are given in Bulletin 36, a copy of which will 

 be sent on application to the Station. Maine dealers will prob- 

 ably find it impossible to buy outside of the State, grass seed 

 whose purity is guaranteed, hence Maine jobbers will have to 

 fix the guaranty either by analysis made by themselves or by 

 someone else. The guaranty must be in accord with fact. 

 Maine retail dealers will have no difficulty in buying properly 

 guaranteed seeds from Maine jobbers. 



The Brand. A seed to be lawfully sold or offered for sale 

 in Maine must carry "a written or printed guaranty of its purity 

 and freedom from foreign matter." It is not enough that the 

 package carries the figures but they must be accompanied by 

 explanatory words naming the seed and what the figures mean. 

 For example, — a bag of timothy seed labeled "99.5 per cent" is 

 not lawfully branded ; it should be labeled in some such a way 

 as the following: — "Timothy, 99.5 per cent pure." 



Analysis Of Unguaranteed Seeds. 

 The Station examines as promptly as possible all samples of 

 seeds sent by Maine dealers to assist them to decide (i) 

 whether they should or should not purchase the seed, and (2) 

 what guaranty of purity should be placed upon the seeds. 

 When the seed law first went into effect the Director of the 

 Station decided to make free analysis of seed for dealers and 

 did so for a number of years. The law requires that all anal- 

 yses made by the Station under the law be published. This 

 led to some dealers not submitting samples for examination 



