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Let me here say a word on nomenclature. 'When we use the word "control" in 

 connection with seeds we mean the exercise of the Government's legal powers to regulate 

 the sale of seeds. When we refer only to the examination of seeds in order to establish 

 their qualities of germination and purity we do not speak of "seed control" but simply 

 of "seed testing". 



My colleague Mr. Saunders will deal with the technical details of the regulations 

 in force and those about to be issued, the methods employed in the official Testing Stations 

 and the system of licensing private Testing Stations under the Act, and I will therefore 

 pass to the other aspects of English Seed policy bound ujy with the National Institute of 

 Agricultural Botany. 



I must remind you that I was in 1917 an ignoramus and am still only an amateur in all 

 these matters, but my past career as a journalist has given me a lively interest in the 

 printed word. I therefore, at the time I was busy with the new Official Testing Station 

 and our first Seeds Order, studied with great interest an article which appeared in the 

 Journal of the Board of Agriculture in February 1917 on the plant breeding activities of 

 Professor Biff en, Director of the Plant Breeding Institute of Cambridge University, to whose 

 achievement and inspiration British Agriculture owes an incalculable debt. This article • 

 went on to describe the work begun at Svalof in 1886 which has resulted in the splendid 

 organisation which we now know. I was fired with the ambition to set up in England 

 a similar system of improving the plants of the farm. The main difficulty which confronted 

 me was the special character of the seed industry in Great Britain, which differentiated 

 it entirely from conditions in Sweden. The British seedsman has deserved well of agriculture 

 by developing new and improved varieties on commercial lines which yet owe a good deal to 

 the scientific spirit. Svalof represents a dual organisation, half purely scientific and half purely 

 commercial, which would have suited ill our British conditions.' The visitor to Svalof 

 obsei;ves that side by side, working together in perfect harmony, there are a scientific 

 institute, supported in the main by Government grants, and a commercial undertaking 

 farming on a very large scale and selling seed direct to the farmer in competition with 

 other seedsmen. That the General Swedish Seed Company recognizes its obligation to its , 

 scientific neighbour is clear from the fact that it contributes to the Institute's funds a 

 considerable proportion of its profits, but it remains a commercial concern with shareholders 

 to be considered and trade competitors to be faced. 



I felt it would be unjust, if not impossible, to set up a parallel organisation in 

 England. The Plant Breeding Institute of Cambridge works, like Dr. Nilsson's Institute 

 at Svalof, on purely scientific problems, and had hitherto distributed its products in a 

 rather haphazard way for lack of a suitable organisation. Incidentally, such financial profits 

 as might reasonably have accrued on the distribution of such notable new varieties as 

 "Little .Toss'' and "Yeoman" went into private rather than public pockets. Any proposal 

 to hand over the products of a State supported Institute to a purely commej'cial organisation 

 which would make them an occasion for private profit, would have caused a not 

 unjustifiable outory. 



It seemed to me obvious that the need existed for some new type of organisation 

 which would distribute new varieties to the farmer after exhaustive trials had been made, 

 employing any profits made by the undertaking on further work of the same kind. On 

 the other hand it was most desirable to enlist the sympathies and active co-operation of 

 the seed trade. I therefore designed the National Institute of Agricultural Botany to meet 

 the situation. 



Shortly after the opening of the Official Seed Testing Station for England and Wales 

 a memorandum on the new proposals was written by myself and supported by letters from 

 the then President of the Board of Agriculture, Lord Ernie, and other eminent agriculturists 

 I received from private friends donations iii land and money amounting^to over £ 25,000, and 

 then laid my memorandum before my Seeds Advisory Committee, and the three Seed Trade 

 Associations. These Associations answered the appeal nobly, subscribing altogether about 



