SECOND REPORT ON ADULTERATION OP SEEDS. 



87 



same price, trusting to the average of years and prices equalizing 

 things in the course of a number of years. Your Committee do 

 not think that this uniformity of price is any advantage to the 

 purchasers, but a great disadvantage, if obtained, as it is, at the 

 cost of variation in the quality of the seeds. But the fact being 

 that, whether an advantage or not, the seedsmen have been to 

 a certain extent acting upon it, it is plain that injury might 

 be inflicted upon them if the system were suddenly put a stop 

 to. If, for example, a seedsman is now in the midst of a course of 

 years, of which the first half, which is past, has been bad, a sudden 

 change would deprive him of the chance of restoring things during 

 the remainder of his cycle of years, which, as the first half had 

 been disadvantageous, he might reasonably expect to be good. 



It is plain, also, that arrangements made in dependence on the 

 continuance of the present system cannot stop merely at the 

 actual bargains between the dealer and grower • a multitude of 

 engagements, sales, and purchases in advance, more or less 

 arising out of the same state of things, are all in dependence. 

 Even the discharge of the servants employed in the mere mechani- 

 cal operations of mixing the seeds would of itself occasion much 

 distress, if any change leading to it were carried out suddenly 

 and without ample premonition. 



Too much caution, therefore, cannot be used in dealing with a 

 matter affecting so many and such important interests, and where 

 the consequences of any error would be so grave. 



At the same time matters cannot be allowed to remain as they 

 are ; and your Committee's first idea was, that the seedsmen them- 

 selves should undertake their own deliverance. They believe that 

 these gentlemen are themselves thoroughly in earnest in their 

 desire to get rid of the present system ; nay, more, they believe 

 that the more respectable members of the trade take no advan- 

 tage from it, that their profits are not greater than those of other 

 similar branches of industry, and that pecuniarily they would be 

 gainers by the abolition of the system, and the substitution of a 

 higher price for a better quality of seeds. But it is to be feared 

 that they are so hedged in by the engagements and bargains that 

 they have made, that it is very doubtful if they would be able to 

 shake themselves free from its trammels by any efforts of their 

 own. And even if they could, and, by a unanimous resolu- 

 tion of the trade, were to renounce all mixing of seeds thencefor- 

 ward, the public would not benefit ; on the contrary, they would 

 be losers ; for, instead of having the system conducted, as at 



