130(5 The Vegetable Industry 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 line 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 



