1306 Tus VecetasLte Inpusrry in New York State 
the price charged and the quality of the commodity commensur- 
ate, but as a general principle there should be and usually is a 
considerable degree of parallelism between them. Furthermore, 
the sentiment produced by the attempt to purchase seeds at compe- 
tition prices is not conducive to much improvement in strains. 
At the present time we have no rule by which we can purchase 
seeds and be assured that they will give the results desired. The 
general seed catalogues published by the majority of the seedsmen, 
while fine examples of the printer’s art, usually contain little of 
definite value to guide the prospective purchaser in the selection of 
the variety or strain he desires. Furthermore, almost every seeds- 
man has a strain which he claims to be the best obtainable, and 
in some instances the seedsman does make an especial effort to 
keep his strains pure and true to type. Some of his seeds are 
grown under his personal supervision, while those grown by con- 
tract are in charge of men who have spent years in the business 
and take special care to keep the stocks pure. As a check on this 
work some seedsmen maintain trial grounds in order that they 
may acquire personal knowledge of the various stocks before they 
are disseminated among their customers. Other seedsmen may 
publish catalogues equally as attractive and make as strong claims 
concerning the merits of their strains, while as a matter of fact 
they may never have seen the stock from which it was produced 
or even know where or by whom grown, but simply have pur- 
chased the seed in bulk from a jobber, securing it at the lowest 
possible price. 
Another practice far too common in the seed business is that 
of renaming varieties. In a test of cabbage conducted by the 
writer last year, the variety Jersey Wakefield, which has been on 
the market since about 1840, was grown under the name of Early 
Pointed, Earliest, Standard Early and New Greenpack. In 
each case the seed was purchased a few months previous to the 
time it was sown and was thought to be a distinct variety. 
In view of the uncertainty concerning the purchase of seeds, it 
should need little argument to show the importance of making a 
preliminary test to determine the relative merits of the variety 
or strain previous to the time it is expected to be used for the 
general planting. In order to make this test of value, seed of the 
