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ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



forward many to speak to matters within their cognizance, and 

 led to a certain amount of discussion in the public prints, which 

 has not been without its use. 



So far as they have heard, no exception has been taken by any 

 one to the statements in their former Report. They understand 

 that they are admitted to be a fair and moderate statement of 

 facts, so far as they go. Some of the details have been explained 

 or apologized for ; and the burden and odium of others have been 

 shifted from England to the Continent ; but the fact of their 

 existence has not been disputed. 



The minor details of manipulation your Committee think of 

 little consequence. The mixing of old seed or killed seed with 

 new to increase the apparent quantity is the chief evil, and the 

 practice which your Committee have found it most difficult to deal 

 with. • At the first blush it seems a monstrous absurdity, not to 

 say iniquity, that the grower should be at pains to clean his seed, and 

 bring it to a high average of good seed, only to have the dealer put 

 himself to equal pains to undo his work and reduce it again ; but 

 an explanation of the peculiarities of the business has shown how 

 naturally and easily the practice has imperceptibly glided on from 

 innocent and natural precautions to its present questionable state. 



The crop of many of the seeds which form the staple of the seeds- 

 man's business is always uncertain and precarious in this country. 

 A single night's frost at a critical period may destroy the whole of 

 the crops of turnip-, mangold-, cauliflower-, or cabbage-seed exposed 

 to it. The seedsman thus can never calculate on the supply of the 

 coming year. It may be a failure ; and he most properly provides 

 against this by laying in a large stock when the crop is abundant 

 and good. But what is he to do with the large stock so laid up in 

 the case of a sequence of two' or three good years ? He uses it 

 up by mixing the product of the different years together. By 

 and by a bad year comes, but, by the seedsman's precautions and 

 forethought, a sufficient oversupply from previous years remains 

 in stock, and the country is not unprovided. From suck occa- 

 sional intermixture there is a natural and easy descent to a con- 

 stant lowering of the average. Troublesome questions are put if 

 the seed is found better or worse one year than another. So it 

 comes to be thought that it would be more easy for the seedsman, 

 and less troublesome for the customer, if it were kept always at 

 about the same average, and the price correspondingly lowered ; 

 and so the system of regular manipulation and tampering with 

 the quality is introduced. 



