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latitude and subject to certain other clauses for the protection of the seller, then the Ministry 

 can take action against the seller. Suitable penalties are imposed by the Act for, cases 

 of this sort. Ybu will observe that this form of seed "control", as we call it, differs from 

 the voluntary control existing in some of the Continental countries. Without arguing the 

 merits of the two systems, I think that the Continental system would be impossible in 

 Great Britain owing to the fact that the trade in seeds is not confined to a relatively few 

 firms, but is in the hands of thousands of traders and firms of all sizes some of whom 

 only deal in seeds as a side line. I think that the advantage of our Seeds Act is that it 

 enables the supervision of these smaller traders, since they undoubtedly are the people who 

 handle the seed of low quality. These people would probably remain outside any scheme 

 of voluntary control and there would be nothing to prevent them selling inferior seed to 

 the farmer. 



The Seeds Act contains no special regulations with regard to imported seed, such 

 seed as soon as it reaches this country becoming subject to the ordinary requirements of 

 the Seeds Act. The^ only entirely prohibitory clause in the Act is one which forbids the 

 sale of any seed for sowing which, contains more than 6 "/o of Injurious Weeds. 



I think that is all I need say about the requii-ements of the Seeds Act, and before turning 

 to our actual methods "of testing there are one or two points regarding the administrative 

 side of a Seed Testing Station to which I would like to refer. Prom my knowledge of 

 the other Stations in the United Kingdom, and the principal Continental Stations, I am 

 inclined to think that the English Station goes further than do other Stations in dividing 

 the work into sections which are more or less self contained. Most Stations I know keep 

 Purity and Germination rooms separate, and my impression is that the personnel of the 

 Purity room is usually distinct from the Germination staff. There may be a certain amount 

 of division of the work in the Purity or in the Germination rooms, but each staff deals 

 more or less with all classes of seed. Our method in England is rather different. The work 

 is divided into four sections according to the kind of seed tested (Grasses, Clovers, Cereals, 

 Boots and Vegetables), and there is a separate staff for each section who are responsible 

 both for Purity and Germination. Thus the staff of the Clover section deals with Clover 

 samples from beginning to end and does not handle Grass or Cereals at all. This appears 

 to me to be a better, plan, particularly where large numbers of samples have to be dealt 

 with, for a single person or batch of persons can more quickly handle one hundred Clover 

 samples than they can deal with one hundred samples of assorted species. I think moreover 

 that it makes supervision more easy, and the head of each section in time becomes a specialist , 

 in her kind of seed. The junior assistants in each section are, of course, from time to time 

 changed so that they get a chance of passing through all sections. 



Another point to which I should like to refer is the method we adopt for recording 

 samples on their receipt. Most Stations adopt what I will call the method of consecutive 

 numbering. Thus a merchant sends three samples, one each of Eeed Glover, Cocksfoot and 

 Beet; these wiU be numbered perhaps 4067, 4068 and 4069. This method probably works 

 satisfactorily where all samples go to the same room for Purity test, but where they go 

 to different rooms, as they do with us, it might lead to samples being mislaid, since the 

 numbers would not run consecutively in each section. Our^ method is to give a letter to 

 each group of seeds and a further letter to designate the species, thus Bed Clover is Aa, 

 Alsike Ab, Perennial Eyegrass Ba, Italian Eyegrass Bb and so forth. Our ledgers ai-e ruled 

 accordingly and each species under its letter is numbered consecutively. Thus we might 

 refer to the above samples as Aa 267, Be 103 and Eb 182. Each section, therefore, gets 

 its samples numbered consecutively under its own letters, and if a number is missing, the 

 fact is at once obvious. It also enables report forms to be numbered and bound into books 

 which need pass only from the office to the special section concerned. To make this 

 description more clear I will pass round for inspection a page from one of our ledgers. 

 - Our methods for making the actual tests of seeds are naturally based upon the 

 requirements of the Seeds Act, thus for example we do pot make quantitative Purity tests 



