PURE SEEDS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13638, 4 July 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

PURE SEEDS.

In the coarse of a speech lex his constituents at Stirling, Mr T. Mackenz e Sa i d ' now - come to another question of considerable importance to the ll " n ® 1 , ' and that is the matter of seed. In ttoe agricultural and pastoral news of » « "Witness" of la.-t month apP«"* ® following:-"The seed merchants of the Dominion give no warranty, expres.. implied, when sending out- their -eed. and they will nob be in any way sible for the crop resulting. If tll6 P"T chaser does not accept the goods on those terms, they are to be immediately returned, carriage paid." Further down the writer suggests that seedsmen should be liable. "At the same time the seedsman should not be allowed to sell indifferent) seed at a high price, as some of them do, without being liable for the consequences. If his quality were all right, he need have no hesitation m guaranteeing his sample. . might as well put his hand directly into the farmers pocket as sell him indifferent 6eed. There is always great waste as it is in sowing more seed than is necessary, and the seed merchant profits by it. This 5b one of the questions, that will be set right by combination." lam glad to say that what the fanner, in his concluding remarks, desires to see done I have already achieved. X knocked the non-warranty clause out of existence in 1887 by bringing an action ■ against a seed merchant that wishedto evade responsibility by mat verv provision, and Judge Williams, in summing up the situation, said : " Where one seed had been supplied for another, in such a case the question is not one of warranty, but of condition. As it is put by one of the witnesses, if a man contracts to supply peas, and supplies beans, that is not a breach of warranty, but a breach of the essential terms of the contract. I will give judgment for the plaintiff, T. Mackenzie." ' The importance :■ of seed to the farmers is so great that you will pardon "me if I enlarge on the question. You will halve noticed that at the show time an article appeared testifying to' the great 'good that Air Cockayne was doing in tests for the purity of seed . Now, whilst purity and germination are essential points, these, after all, are" not the main things in'connection with seed. You require to knowthat your- seed- has been cultivated under proper conditions, securing purity of strain and freedom from cro.'s-fertilisaliori. Mr Cockayne refers'to how much '1 per cent, of impurity, will do, but after all .he does no more for the quality than a fanner whose stock might be browsing on the pasturage does when he says: " I have cleared out all the hares, rabbits, and small birds off my property, and e nothing left but cows." There is seed and seed, as there are cows and cows. For. instance, on the experimental farm at Levin, reports tell us there are two cows, the one Mary and the other Mabel.' The former,, from 4501b of butter fat, shows a clear profit on the season of £l7 or £lB, whereas Mabel shows a loss of £l2. What you want to be assured of in connection with seed is that the qualitv is there as well as the purity. Let me give an illustration regarding the process necessary to procure good turnip seed. The crop requires first to be sown apart from all others of the Bresica, family. Seeds are first taken from s'ock seed grown from picked' bulbs. It is' sown at the end of August or early in September; then about 9th November transplanting is done, selecting strong plants for seed yielding. Were the plants grown from ordinary seeds, much at this stage would be thrown out. Plants bloom in May, when, if anyc-uing unsatisfactory is detected in the flower, they are culled. * In July the crop is cut, and ■threshed in the -end-of August,' after the first touch of frost comes on. I had considerable experience in the buying of seeds atTSome. Before I bothered with the purity or germinating powers I first satisfied myself with the genuineness of the quality and the proper mode of production to be adopted. Then 'I would send a sample to Dr. Garruthers, botanist for the Royal Agricultural Society, and if the seed germinated 90 per cent, or over would then buy. It, was stated that fanners are sometimes -penny wise and pound foolish in their way of buying seeds. Let me say that I know firms in the Old Country that trade on fanners in this respect. I. have known firms charging double price to farmers tor exactly the same quality of seeds that could be got from other merchants, simply i because they were making the farmer be- ! that he was getting somethinc extra in quality. . : , -V EXPERIMENTS BY FARMEKS. | Field experiments made by farmers in I their own fields are not intended to solve problems connected with the general prac- ; tice of agriculture, but to afford informa- : tion as to the special needs of the farmer's j own fields, and to show in how far he can increase his profit or economise by the addition or omission of certain fertilising ingredients. It is the province of scientific institutions to investigate general principles. It is the province of the individual farmer to ascertain by trials on his own fields to what extent the result obtained by the institutions are applicable to his farm. Every farmer .should make such experiments, because the results will afford guidance to be obtained so accurately in no other way. It is by such means that he can find out what kinds and quantities of the different fertilising ingredients will yield the best results: in what constituents lie can economise, and in what he should be more liberal.

Before the introduction x»f' artificial manures the treatment of the soil -was a simple matter; but now that the fanner has at his disposal a variety of artificials, and is recommended to expend considerable sums on them, it> is essential {hatha should ascertain by actual experiment and calculation how far the expenditure will result in an increased profit. He should examine this question just as careas any other manufacturer before incurring outlay for increased machinery and plant and calculate how far the expenditure will be remunerative. It may be thought that an analysis of the soil, or the results obtained an agricultural scientific institution, affordsufficient guidance, but it is hot so. Chemical analysis, useful as" it may be, will not show conclusively the quantity of the available plant food in the soil; the results' obtained at. the " iifctitution, also useful in a general way and admirable as sign-posts showing the direction, do not indicate with precision the special requirements of the farmer's land ; nouiing can reveal this need but a trial on the spot.

It is not difficult to arrange an experiment in a simple manner, but which will neverthekes afford useful infoimai-on; in fact, the simpler the experiment the better, and the less likely to Jead to incorrect or indefinite conclusions. At'the same time must not be' forgotten that the results of one season's experiments are only of relative value, because the conditions of climate and weathermay be quite different the following year, so that more reliable results are obtained by experiments conducted over a series of years upon -which the average can be calculated.