172 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I909. 



tributor in issuing a disclaimer of responsibility for quality is 

 irrational and will, sooner or later, be made non-effective by 

 legislation. 



Results op Inspection. 



In the year 1909, the seed analyst of the Station acted as 

 the inspector and during the months of April and May in which 

 the seeds were chiefly on sale visited all parts of the State and 

 examined many hundreds of lots of seed which were on sale. 

 He has through his experience in analyzing seeds become so 

 much of an expert that even with a small lens it is possible for 

 him to estimate very closely as to whether the seed is or is not 

 up to guaranty. Out of the many hundreds of lots of seeds 

 which he found at the various stores in the State he found it 

 necessary to take samples from only about 30 of which he had 

 some doubts as to their corresponding to their guaranty. 

 About half of these deviated more than could be passed over 

 from their professed standard. 



There were only five instances in which the violations seemed 

 to call for action on the part of the executive officer of the law. 

 In these cases hearings were appointed and affidavits taken in 

 the cases which were accepted as satisfactory explanations of 

 the wrong guarant}'^ of the seeds. 



Only one lot of seeds was exceedingly bad. That was an 

 alsike clover found at the store of Mr. A. M. Brown, Augusta, 

 which was offered under a guaranty of 95 per cent and carried 

 only 69.3 per cent of alsike clover. It was claimed by Mr. 

 Brown that this seed was purchased from a house within the 

 State under a written guaranty. The house in question say 

 that this particular seed they never had. The inspector failed 

 to make a memorandum of the marks upon the package so that 

 it was not possible to tell whether this lot of seed was or was 

 not from the jobbing house in question. Because of this uncer- 

 tainty neither the retailer nor the jobbing house were, prose- 

 cuted. They both claimed through their affidavits to have acted 

 in good faith. 



A firm at Corinna purchased in 1908 grass seeds from a Bos- 

 ton firm which came to them marked "99 per cent pure." They 

 did not obtain a written guaranty. These goods were not sam- 

 pled by the Station in 1908 but were found in 1909 to be about 

 95 per cent pure instead of 99 per cent. The retailer made 



