NEW ZEALAND CLOVER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20323, 3 February 1928, Page 12

NEW ZEALAND CLOVER.

ALLEGED FALSE DESCRIPTION. LEGAL CASE AT BROMLEY. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, December 24. A case of some interest to seed growers in this country and in New Zealand came before the Bromley (Kent) magistrates this week.

Herbert J. C. Knight, corn and seed merchant, of London road, Bromley, was summoned by the Ministry ? Agriculture and Fisheries for selling, with intent to defraud, a quantity of Kentish old pasture wild white clover seed to Messrs Hasler and Co., T imited, Dunmow, Essex, to which had been applied a false trade description as to the place the seeds were produced. It was alleged that they were falsely indicated to be Kentish, contrary to the Merchandise Marks Act. Knight was further summone 1 for making a statement under the "seeds Act, 1920, which was false in a material particular.

Mr F. C. Wynn Werninck, defending, pleaded not guilty to both summonses. air W. Stuart Bates, for the Ministry of Agriculture, asserted that the seed was not Kentish wild white clover. The prosecution’s case was that it was foreign seed. On September 21 Knight offered the seed to Hasler and Co. as “ extra fine old pasture Kent wild white clover seed ” at 8s a lb, and guaranteed a growth of between 88 and 90 per cent. The offer was accepted, and the seed sent. In reply to a letter from Hasler and Co. Knight wrote that the seed was grown in the Wye district “by one of our most reliable growers. ' The prosecution would prove, however, that the seed, in fact, was imported from New Zealand. , AFFECTED BY A DISEASE. Experts, he said, would bo called to prove that the seed contained a large proportion of weed impurities, the finding of which indicated foreign origin. The seed was affected by a disease which scientific experts would say had never been found in the 1925 crop of Kentish white clover, but had been found iu white clover imported from New Zealand. In September, this year, the wholesale price of Kentish wild white clover seed was from 7s to 8s 6d a lb, and that of the New Zealand article from Is to 2s 6d a lb. Mr Warninck said his client would say that he sold the seed to Messrs Hasler just as he received it from 'he Kentish grower, without any mishandling at all. The only thing he did was to clean it. Mr William Hasler, senior partner of the Dunmow firm, cross-examined, said his suspicions were aroused when he received a report from the testing station at Cambridge that a sample of seed showed 96 per cent, germination. The sample also showed a purity result or 98.3 per cent. Mr Weminck: There does not seem to be very much the matter with the seed. Xt is purely a question of nationality. As a seed it is excellent. The case was adjourned tall January 12.