POOR QUALITY SEED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17144, 28 December 1929, Page 11

POOR QUALITY SEED

PROTECTION OF FARMERS Some time ago the Dairy Farmers ’ Union wrote to the Department of Agriculture urging that legislation be passed to prevent the sale of poor varieties of seed. The department has replied that legislation along lines of a Pure Seeds Bill.will be considered during tho recess. A difficult point to get over would be whether sales of seeds directly from one farmer to another should* be subject to the same conditions as between a merchant and a farmer. No country in the world, it was stated, 'had been able to devise legislation that would absolutely protect farmers.

A copy of a letter sent to the Farmers’ Union on the same subject by the Minister of Agriculture has also been received in Palmerston North. In,this the Minister states that very little turnip or swede seed that is not true to type is imported into this Dominion. Merchants overseas exercised great care in ensuring that their seed was true to type, though at times lines came into they trade that tended to throw inferior bulbs, or were contaminated by seed produced from deteriorated roots. In many instances such lines would produce quite satisfacory crops where cultural conditions were good and the ground was not too rich, but in other cases a crop might consist of a considerable percentage of plants that did not form reasonably-shaped bulbs, but tended to become fauged or many-rooted. An examination of seed itself was no guide to its cropping powers, except so far as germination was concerned. The adoption of field trials would not be practicable as a large quantity of the seeds imported annually would have to be kept off the market for a full season while these trial were made.

Smaller Wool Offerings. t . Synchronising with the endeavor on the part of some of the wool growers to restrict offerings at Mew Zealand sales with the idea of lengthening the selling season, there has been an involuntary tendency in this direction. The wet weather has delayed shearing in some of the districts to such a great extent that small offerings were inevitable, while in addition some of the growers who have been fortunate enough to have concluded their shearing have taken the course of holding off the market in the hope of an improvement, which so far has not been apparent. During November 9300 bales fewer were offered than for the ■corresponding month last year, while the decrease for the present month over December of last year is 11,158 bales, making a total decrease of 20,458 bales. The offerings for the first two months of the current and past seasons are as follow: —1928-29, 88,181 bales; 1929-30, 77,023 bales.