April 1908.] 



355 



Miscellaneous* 



It may not be out of place here for me, 

 as a former student and teacher of the 

 Royal College of Science, London, to call 

 attention to what appears to a botanist 

 a peculiar lack of appreciation of the 

 modern developments of botany in the 

 hesitation shown as to the future of the 

 Biological Division, in the Report of the 

 Committee on that College's conversion 

 into a more strictly technical or applied 

 College of Science. If the Committee 

 were familiar with the beneficial work 

 carried out in Germany by Frank, Hartig, 

 "Von Tubeuf, Aderhokl, etc., in the Bio- 

 logical Institutes of Berlin, Munich, and 

 Hamburg, and in France by Prillieux 

 and Delacroix, etc., there would surely 

 be no inclination to suppress the Biolo- 

 gical Division, but rather to develop 

 it along economic lines. Even if there 

 were no ordinary students this division 

 could make an ample return for all 

 expenditure on it by additions to our 

 knowledge of benefit to agriculture, 

 horticulture, and other branches of 

 economic botany. 



It was in the year 1869 that seed- 

 testing, as now understood, started. 

 Nobbe of Tharand was asked to examine 

 a grass mixture, and found the sample 

 was not true to description, a remark 

 which applied to many other samples 

 he then obtained from various parts of 

 Germany. 



Although the credit of starting the 

 first Seed-testing Station must be given 

 to Nobbe, measures had be<m taken as 

 long ago as 1816 in Switzerland to sup- 

 pressfraud in theseed trade. Thus au in- 

 spector had the right of entry into a seed 

 shop or warehouse for inspection of the 

 seeds on sale, punishment following 

 detection of fraud. In England in 1869 

 the Adulteration of Seeds Act was passed, 

 making it penal to kill seeds kept for 

 sale. The Royal Horticultural Society of 

 England did much to expose the corrup- 

 tion which had crept into the seed trade. 

 In its second report (Farmer's Magazine, 

 February, 1869), the Royal Horticultural 

 Society Committee says: "... Every- 

 thing is thus thrown upon the honesty 

 of the dealer. Hd fixes the prices, regu- 

 lates the quality, and the purchaser is 

 kept in the dark, and has no cheek upon 

 either. This is a temptation beyond 

 what the average frailty of human 

 nature ought in fairness to be exposed. 

 . . . One of the chief fuuctions of the 

 association (of wholesale seedsmen) is 

 . . . the regulation of prices .... and 

 the determination as to what kind of 

 seeds should have their average lowered 

 and to what extent it should be done." 

 With honourable exceptions trade cata- 

 logues offered in addition to " nett or 

 pure seed " trio " seed, i,e., seed killed for 



admixture purposes ! The Act of 1869 

 made the admixture of killed seed an 

 offence, but did not provide machinery 

 for the detection of the offence, as is 

 now the case for artificial manures and 

 feeding stuffs under the Fertilizers and 

 Feeding Stuffs Act of 1893, 



In 1900 the English Board of Agricul- 

 ture appointed a Committee to enquire 

 into the conditions under which agri- 

 cultural seeds are at present sold, and 

 to report whether any further measures 

 can with advantage be taken to secure 

 the maintenance of adequate standards 

 of purity and germinating power. This 

 Departmental Committee recommended 

 the establishment of one central Seed- 

 testing Station under Government aus- 

 pices, with the fees so fixed as to encour- 

 age seedsmen to sell subject to reselling 

 by the purchaser, should he desire it. 

 So far this recommendation has re- 

 mained a dead letter in Great Britain. 

 A Government Station was already in 

 existence in Ireland when the Com- 

 mitte was appointed, and so far some 

 6,000 samples of seed have been tested 

 by it. 



The revelations of fraud and ignorance 

 published in 1875 by Nobbe in his Hand- 

 buch der Satnenkunde led to vigorous 

 action, and Seed-testing Stations were 

 started in nearly every country in the 

 world, mostly under Government con- 

 trol. At the present time there are 

 some 150. 



The object of each Station is to assist 

 the seedsmen and the farmers in secur- 

 ing the best and purest seed for agri- 

 cultural or other purposes. Evidence 

 abouuds to prove that where in any 

 trade there is a demand for inferior 

 goods the supply will be forthcoming, 

 and that where there is ignorance on 

 the buyer's side the seller will, in too 

 many cases, take advantage of it and 

 try to profit by it. These statements 

 are not universally applicable in the 

 seed trade. They hold true, however, 

 to such au extent as to necessitate the 

 existence of Seed-testing Stations to 

 determine for all parties concerned 

 the nature of the goods under sale. 

 It is uot necessary to label the good 

 and bad kinds. While in appearance 

 and price there is little to distin- 

 guish the two kinds of seeds from one 

 another, the test shows au enormous 

 difference. 



As many of my readers are probably 

 not familiar with the qualities which 

 characterise a good seed, or with the 

 procedure followed in ascertaining these 

 points, I propose in the following lines 



