SEED WARRANTY. 



1V1 



E7iemies and diseases. — The worst enemies are the mag- 

 got and the blight or mildew. The former does not 

 often cause serious loss, but the latter is very destruc- 

 tive. No well established remedies are known. I have 

 heard that sowing radishes with the onions partially 

 protects them from the attack of the maggot, the insect 

 preferingthe radishes, but I cannot verify the statement. 

 It is to be hoped that the Bordeaux mixture may prove 

 a check to the blight. The most practicable remedy is 

 rotation of beds. 



Profits. — Sometimes there are no profits, and some- 

 times they are good. With a crop requiring so much 

 labor, if from any cause there is a failure, the loss is 

 considerable To show the range in my own expedi- 

 ence, I will give my poorest and my best results. In 

 i88g, from three pounds and one ounce of seed I got but 

 175 bushels, the most of which were so small as to be 

 scarcely marketable, and owing to this and the careless- 

 ness of the one in whose hands they were left for sale, I 

 did not get enough to pay for harvesting and drawing to 

 the railroad. This is an example of what the blight 

 can do. 



The cost was about as follows : 



Manure $14 00 



Rent of land 10 00 



Seed 5 50 



Fitting and sowing 3 50 



Hand dragging S o 75 



Three weedings 34 25 



Pulling 5 75 



Topping 8 25 



Picking up and mo\'ing to railroad 9 25 



Total $9i 25 



In 1S8S, from two pounds of seeds, I harvested 260 

 bushels, which sold at 60 cents per bushel, or $156. 

 The cost was as follows ; 



Rent of land 5 5 00 



Manure 8 00 



Seed .... 5 00 



Fitting and sowing i 50 



Hand dragging 25 



Three weedings 1+25 



Extra work with wheel-hoe 75 



Pulling 4 ^5 



Topping 6 75 



Picking up and drawing S 25 



Total 554 00 



Deducting this from $156 leaves $102 profit, or 188?^ 



per cent, on the investment. The crop occupied a little 

 over one-third of an acre, making the yield at the rate 

 of 700 bushels per acre. 



In conclusion, I may say that the most important 

 points in onion culture are : i. Rich land well manured ; 

 2, good seed ; 3, early sowing ; 4, clean and frequent 

 cultivation ; 5, a sure market. 



Pennsyh.uDiia . Fred. W. Card 



SEED WARRANTY. 



\ PAGE 480 of the August 

 number of The American 

 Garden I uotice an article 

 by "Seed Grower" upon 

 '3p^->^f^ , the law of warranty in re- 



gard to seeds sold that fail 

 to germinate or to produce 

 such results as the pur- 

 chaser has a right to expect. 



Laws are said to be based upon justice and common 

 sense, and probably for this reason the framers of the 

 law of warranty, assuming that every seed grower was 

 honest till he had been proved otherwise, and that the 

 majority of seed growers were liable to blunder in their 

 many various ways of seed sowing, saw the justness of 

 freeing the seedsmen from the losses likely to arise 

 from the failure of crops, due in many cases to the 

 ignorance of the sower. 



Now, when I try any special brand of fertilizer and 

 it fails to produce any marked or even visible result, I 

 do not for a moment think of using this as a claim 

 for damages. I naturally look for the manufacturer's 

 guaranteed analysis at a certain date and compare it 

 with the analysis made by the government. If these 

 are satisfactory, I am content to believe that either my 

 soil does not require the fertilizer, or that it will, at 

 some future time, be benefitted by it. Having sus- 

 tained, at various times, heavy losses through the use 



of what I know to have been dead seed, I instituted a 

 series of seed soil tests for my own use, following these 

 up from time to time by submitting the same to a Gov- 

 ernment Experiment Station. I satisfied myself that, 

 in a way, the vitality of seeds could be dealt with very 

 much in the same way that fertilizers now are. Most 

 seedsmen advertise that their seeds are tested. Now, 

 of what possible value can this piece of information 

 be to the general public, unless the actual result of the 

 test is stated ? Others assert that the unsold seed pack- 

 ages will be "cremated" in the presence of the retail- 

 ers at the end of each season. What guarantee is this 

 that the cremation should not have taken place years 

 before ? If the law cannot provide that the purity and 

 productiveness of seeds be secured, it certainly can, and 

 I believe ere long will, insist that all seed packages be 

 dated, and that the seeds therein shall have been tested 

 and guaranteed of a certain percentage of vitality, 

 whether it be 30, 60 or 90 per cent, up to a fixed date, 

 say to the time when the catalogues are being prepared, 

 and sold at prices in a corresponding ratio to the per- 

 centage of vitality. This, I believe, would be the 

 means of insuring confidence and cooperation between 

 the seedsman and sower. It would give the seedsman a 

 safe and honest standard on which to base his war- 

 ranty ; it would insure the sower from the losses which 

 he now too often has to endure, and it would do much 

 in causing better methods to be adopted in preparing the 

 ground for the proper seed. W. A. Hale. 



