46 



ANNALS OF HORTICULTUEE. 



yellows and spreading the contagion to their surroundings. 

 The mayor's attention being called to it, he decided, as was the 

 fact, that he had no authority to appoint the much-needed com- 

 missioners. These defects were corrected and an amended 

 bill was laid before the legislature and passed 



The North Carolina Seed Law* has been declared void 

 because it interferes with the shipment of seeds in original 

 packages, and therefore violates the interstate commerce act 

 (52 Fed. Rep. 802). This law was designed to protect pur- 

 chasers from buying old and worthless seeds, by requiring 

 sellers, except farmers who sell in bulk, to label seeds with the 

 year in which they were grown. 



Tomatoes are Vegetables. — A year ago, a legal decision 

 classed watermelons as fruits in the meaning of the tariff 

 law,f but a similar decision this year classes tomatoes as vege- 

 tables. The question came before the United States Supreme 

 Court in an action, brought Feb. 4, 1887, against the collector 

 of the port of New York to recover back duties, paid under 

 protest, on tomatoes imported by Nix Bros, from the West 

 Indies in the spring of 1886, which the collector assessed under 

 " Schedule G, provisions," of the tariff act of March 3, 1883, 

 chap. 121, imposing a duty on " vegetables, in their natural 

 state or in salt or brine, not specially enumerated or provided 

 for in this act, 10 per cent, ad valorem," and which the plain- 

 tiffs contended came within the clause in the free list of the 

 same act, " fruits, green, ripe, or dried, not specially enumerated 

 or provided for in this act." On May 10, 1893, Justice Gray 

 delivered the opinion of the court, from which the following 

 sentences are extracted : 



" There being no evidence that the words 1 fruits ' and 1 vegetables ' 

 have acquired any special meaning in trade or commerce, they must 

 receive their ordinary meaning. . . . Botanically speaking, toma- 

 toes are the fruit of the vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans 

 and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers 

 or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables, which are grown 

 in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like 

 potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, 

 and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish or 

 meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like 

 fruits generally, as dessert. The attempt to class tomatoes as fruit is 

 not unlike a recent attempt to class beans as seeds, of which Mr. 

 Justice Bradley, speaking for this court, said: 4 We do not see why 

 they should be classed as seeds any more than walnuts should be so 

 classified. Both are seeds in the language of botany or natural his- 

 tory, but not in commerce or in common parlance. On the other 

 hand, in speaking generally of provisions, beans may well be included 

 under the term 'vegetables.' As an article of food on our tabJes, 

 whether baked or boiled, or forming the basis of soup, they are used 

 as a vegetable, as well when ripe as when green. This is the principal 

 use to which they are put.' " 



* Annals for 1892, 141. 

 t Annals for 1892, 140. 



