40 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



general, the farmer would soon find his roasted seed left on his 

 hands ; if this happened once or twice, the process would either be 

 made safe or abandoned. 



It is not easy to understand how any one who has to use con- 

 siderable quantities of seed should ever dispense with this precau- 

 tion. It may be that the trouble of testing is supposed to be 

 greater than it really is, or that experience has shown the expe- 

 riment to be useless, as, from the general adoption of the same 

 average, no better quality is to be had in one shop than another. 

 If the latter be the cause of the neglect of this self-evident pre- 

 caution, it must soon cease to be a reason ; for, as soon as the 

 public know that the quality of the seed sold has hitherto been 

 matter of regulation, they will evince a preference for those 

 tradesmen who do not adopt that practice ; and, of course, the de- 

 mand for such will produce its natural consequence, a supply. 

 It will then become essential for the public to know whether those 

 who profess to have abandoned the old system have really done so 

 or not ; and the only effectual way of ascertaining this is to test 

 their seeds. It can scarcely be doubted that if the public were 

 once alive to the importance of this, and if, at the same time, some 

 simple and easy plan of testing the vitality of seeds were made 

 generally known, testing would become general, and a most salu- 

 tary change in the management of the seed business be effected.. 



Your Committee have had under their consideration the 

 various modes of testing seeds which are known to them ; and that 

 which they feel inclined to recommend as on the whole the easiest, 

 cleanliest, least troublesome, and most likely to be acceptable to 

 the general public is the placing of the seeds between folds of 

 moist flannel and keeping them in the temperature of a sitting- 

 room or kitchen for a few days. This, of course, is not equal to 

 nature's own test, actual growth in the earth. It may not answer 

 for all seeds ; but it answers perfectly for most kinds ; and any 

 seed that gives a good return under it may be depended on as 

 certain not to give a worse result when actually sown. An idea 

 of its efficiency may be gathered from a trial of it made by one of 

 your Committee upon 100 seeds of one of the sorts whose aver- 

 age of good seed had in previous trials been found to be 75. The 

 simple method recommended gave 25 seeds germinating on the 

 third day, 23 on the fourth, 16 on the fifth, 9 on the sixth, and 

 3 on the seventh — total 76. But whatever plan the Council think 

 most suitable for general use, your Committee recommend that 

 that plan should be made as widely known and its practice be as 

 strongly inculcated as possible. 



