no 



importation. If this could be done it would be of the greatest 

 possible use to the international seed trade. 



Professor Munn then read the following paper : — 



The Work of the Association of Official Seed Analysts of 



North America, 1921-1924. 



By 



M. T. MUNN, Geneva, New York. 



President of Association of Official Seed Analysts of North America. 



It is a great pleasure and an honour which I have of attending the 

 segsijns of this Congress, and while I cannot appear before you as a 

 delegate from the United States of America, I do have, with your kind 

 permission, the honour, as their President, of representing the Association 

 of Official Seed Analysts of North America and to bring to you their 

 greetings and best wishes in this work of seed testing. I wish to take this 

 opportunity to express on behalf of our Association a most sincere 

 appreciation of the very hearty welcome and generous reception which 

 you have accorded me here as their representative, and also I wish to 

 emphasize the fact that the seed analysts of my coixntry are vitally and 

 keenly interested in the things for which this Congress stands and is 

 trying to do. The analysts of North America are to-day watching with 

 the utmost interest the deliberations of this Congress and what it may mean 

 in international collaboration. 



In response to your kind invitation to tell of the work of our 

 Association in America I can only begin this brief story at the point 

 where it was discontinued four years ago at the Third International 

 Congress, when members of the North American Association, among 

 other things, told you of the organization of oilr Association in 1908 

 and of its work since that time. Since the time of the last Congress in 

 Copenhagen the seed work in America in its various phases in the thirty- 

 eight or more States and in the several provinces of Canada has progressed 

 most rapidly. To speak briefly, perhaps one of the most important 

 advances made has been the certification of those seed laboratories 

 which have attained a certain degree of excellence or qualification, 

 according to rather definite yet flexible standards adopted by the 

 Association. The certification work is based upon at least four points, 

 namely : — training and experience of the analyst, equipment of the 

 laboratory sufficient to carry out satisfactorily the suggested rules for 

 seed testing, the quality of the work done as shown by the results of tests 

 made upon referee seed samples, and the application of the entire time 

 of the analyst to seed testing in its various phases. It has stimulated 

 greater activity, precision of work, and a keener interest upon the part 

 of both analysts and officials connected therewith. This work of 

 certification of the laboratories, though still preliminary, being based 

 upon but three years of work, has provided a list of some twenty or more 

 laboratories where dependable results can be expected. We plan to 

 continue and add to this work from year to year, possibly making more 

 exacting standards of excellence to be attained. 



Since the certification of the seed laboratories has such a close con- 

 nection with and is partly dependent upon the results of comparative 

 tests upon rephcation seed samples or the referee work, I should speak 

 of our work along this line which has now been pushed continuously for 

 some nine or more years. This referee testing work, while it has its 

 limitations, has yielded at least two very definite results of value. It 

 has put the analysts in touch with the best- known methods of seed testing 



