per cent of purity and germinating power. Also, that a State inspector of seeds should be appointed to carry out the law, to the end that all dealers in seeds shall be required to state what they sell, and sell what they state.

I move you, sir, the passage of this resolution.

Mr. APPLETON. This subject has been considered in England by the chief agricultural society there, and, if I remember rightly, the law has certain provisions for the protection of farmers. It requires that there shall be a certain per cent of purity in their seed; they recognize the impossibility of getting them wholly pure, and the botanists. of the Royal Agricultural Society inspect all seeds that are sold under a guarantee, and give information at a fixed and very reasonable rate to all agriculturists.

Mr. MOORE, of Worcester. Such a law would be first rate if it could be carried out, but it would shut off the farmers. Suppose I should bring in a bushel of beans, and want to sell them, and suppose that I have got to guarantee fifty per cent of germinating power, would I or would any person undertake to give such a guarantee? Perhaps under favorable circumstances fifty per cent would germinate; perhaps under other circumstances a much smaller per cent would germinate.

Mr. SEARS of Worcester. I bought the past year a quantity of what I supposed to be grass seed, and found that I had bought a large quantity of wild carrot seed. It was scattered over three acres, and I had to pull it all out. I won't have it in my field. If you go down to the Old Colony you will find fields where there is nothing but wild carrot to be seen, and if we introduce it here it will spread so rapidly that we shall soon find no grass growing. We find that the ox-eyed daisy is spreading in the same way, and so of other seeds. I have bought seed purporting to be clover seed, that contained anything but clover. Of course we can more readily detect adulteration in the case of larger seed; but I have found that the germinating qualities varied exceedingly. As I have been somewhat in the garden business, I have had a chance to test a good many of these things; and I think it would be very judicious to have something in the way of

legal restrictions that would enable us to get a little nearer to what we buy and pay for.

Mr. Howe of Oxford. I wish to speak about the seeds of weeds in particular. We have for some years bought and sold seeds. We have paid an extra price for them, because we wanted to give our patrons clean seed, free from weeds. We have sold them to our good neighbors, and pretty soon they were on top of us for selling them wild turnip seed. I think it is time we were able to get what we buy.

Mr. J. H. HALE of Connecticut. I think this is a matter of very great importance. I can see very readily how you may pass such a law, and that it may be enforced as far as the purity of seeds is concerned. I think a certain inspection could be given through the officers of your experiment station, that would guarantee a certain per cent of purity that would satisfy the consumer. But the question of the germinating power, if it is left to each individual gardener or planter, would be very uncertain. Almost any gardener or farmer knows that oftentimes he has bought garden seed, sowed it on a certain part of his farm at a certain season of the year, under certain conditions, and perhaps ninety-nine or a hundred per cent of that seed has germinated. Then he has sown some of the seed from the same package a week or two later, and has had almost a total failure. The question of the germinating power of seed should not be left in the hands of the gardener or planter. The seed should be tested, and a certificate given from some State authority. Then, again, there are great variations of seed grown on one kind of soil and planted on another soil. A certain seed grown in California might have a very high germinating power when sown on our soil here, and fail to some extent in other localities. It is a difficult question to handle. I believe we have many honest seedsmen who are aiming to have grown for them the best possible seed, and that they handle it in the best manner, and deal honestly. Then, again, they have rivals in business who do not hesitate to buy the cheapest seed that they can find, mix a little good seed with it, and then sell the whole as good seed. Such a law as the one proposed would protect the honest seedsmen

just as much as it would protect the farmer. It is right in the line of work indicated by the paper given to us this afternoon. It is of interest to agriculture, it is of interest to every honest man dealing in seed, and it is of interest to every planter. I think it would be a good thing for the State of Massachusetts to be the first State in the Union to strike out on that line. It is coming, sooner or later. You might as well begin in 1891 as to put it off till later.

Professor ROBERTS. I feel that probably this is a good entering wedge; but I liked the word of the last speaker on the stage, when he said we should have laws "in the interest of righteousness." This only strikes at one little bit of fraud, and so it is not broad enough. I do not wish to throw cold water by any means upon this resolution; but to try to administer a law in a great State like this simply on one little interest, with all the expensive machinery, will be found very difficult. What we want is a general law, not for Massachusetts, but for the United States, "in the interest of righteousness," that all things shall be what they are marked. Now, in the State of New York we run against this constitutional provision, that the Legislature can make no law governing trade of any kind or prohibiting adulteration of any kind except that adulteration can be proven to be inimical to the health of the people. We cannot touch such a thing in our State, we cannot even control commercial fertilizers; and it is quite time that we as farmers, who have now got a little touch of the rein which we ought to have gotten hold of long ago, and learned to drive our own team, it is quite time, it seems to me, that we broaden out, and say there is such a thing as eternal justice, and that is all we demand, not one cent for the farmer, but eternal justice in taxation and everything else, and that we will spend our last breath and our last dollar to secure it. You New Englanders are used to that sort of work, are you not? Your ancestors fought for eternal justice. Are you the degenerate sons of noble sires? Eternal justice! It does not matter whether you are a farmer, or sell peanuts on the corner. Let us stop this age of everlasting fraud, and the only people that can stop that is the farming community. It will never be stopped by the politician, it will never be stopped

by the man who sells you shoddy cloth. If it is ever done, it has got to be done in New England by the farmer.

Mr. GAFFNEY of Worcester. I can see how this thing may be worked in reference to oats or grass seed; but where is the inspector who can take onion and turnip and cabbage seed, and say that that seed is this and that seed is the other? He may say it is onion seed, but what advantage is it going to be to the gardener to have a law of that kind? There is no seedsman in this country who will sell seed under a written guarantee. Every seed package that you buy at the present time has printed on it in plain letters: "We do not guarantee a crop, and if these seeds are not taken under that condition they must be returned immediately." Now, there might be an inspector who should look over the seed; but, as far as obliging the dealers to guarantee the seed, that is practically impossible.

Mr. EDSON of Barnstable. I think we are a little hasty about these laws. We farmers do not like to pay any more for our seeds than we are obliged to. What seedsman is going to guarantee all his seed without compensation? If such a law is passed, shall we not have to pay five times what we are paying to-day for our seed? If such a law is passed and enforced, it will drive out a large part of the merchants who are selling seed, and those who are left in the business will put up the price to cover all damages, and we will have to pay it.

Mr. RECORD of Worcester.

I would like to say a word in reference to the point the last gentleman made. I have for the last fifteen or sixteen years been in the market gardening business, and have learned to value good seed so highly that when I can get the very best seed possible I would not even take a gift of poor seed, and when I can get just what I want, the cost does not amount to a snap of the finger. I think we can afford to pay the price that is necessary to get the very best seed. It will be for our interest.

Mr. BROWN of Westborough. In my opinion, something ought to be done in the way of legislation on this subject. For many years I raised seeds for the Boston dealers, and I remember once selling quite a quantity of seed to a dealer, and he remarked, after he had completed the purchase,

"This seed I shall mix with the old seed, so as to have a certain percentage of germinating seed in it, but it will go as new seed." It is well known that onion seed loses its germinating quality in four years, and even in three years under unfavorable circumstances, and many seeds are good for nothing after two years; but those seeds are mixed by unscrupulous dealers with new, and sold as new seed to the average gardener. He is in a measure satisfied; he expects a good deal will not come up, and he makes no complaint. This proposed legislation would prevent unscrupulous dealers from keeping seed until it is worthless, and then selling it as new seed.

The CHAIRMAN. When the question of fertilizers was brought to the attention of the farmers of Massachusetts, we met the very same objections that we meet here to-day as to the increased cost and the impossibility of getting inspection; but we found it a very simple thing to obtain what we asked for, and the farmers of Massachusetts were saved thousands of dollars which had been thrown away before. The effect of the law was to drive out worthless imitations, with hardly an effort on the part of the farmers of Massachusetts. Such a law will be a check upon the dealer from the time it is passed. Certainly there are but few of us who have not been taken in by poor seed; and it has taken us years to eradicate from our farms the weeds and foul stuff that such seed has brought us. I do not know whether the resolution will cover the point, but it seems to me that it is a step in the right direction. I hope we shall take

action in the matter.

Mr. CUSHMAN. I would like to know to what extent it is intended that this proposed law should be carried. No law is of any practical effect, as a rule, unless there is some penalty attached to it. There are some men, especially those engaged in market gardening, who would be glad to pay largely if they could know that their seed had a guarantee from some official in whom they had confidence; there are others who perhaps would not care to go to that expense. Again, it might be unfortunate in its operation. For instance in my own case, I sell a limited quantity of seed corn every year; I sell it in good faith; it is just such