INSTRUCTION BY CORRESPONDENCE PURE SEEDS BILL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1503, 27 July 1912, Page 8

INSTRUCTION BY CORRESPONDENCE

PURE SEEDS BILL.

A course of instruction in scientific farming has been arranged by Messrs. Hemingway aril Robertson of tho Australasian Correspondence Schools, the object being to prove to fanners how this instruction can be given wherever a letter can be fvent. The course deals fully with the Rpil, drainage, tillage, manuring, ■ plant life,'and crop* Tho firm also intend giving courses in agricultural chemistry, agricultural zoology.. and agricul J ural bot<my, in addition to the course in general floriculture. The single courses will bo given for Xt 1-5. each, or tho four can l*s taken for .£l2 12s. Full particulars rah bs.obtained from tlio firm's Scientific Agriculture Department, Box MG Auckland. Messrs. Ciimming and Son, Auckland, nnnoujico several couuh'y proporties for sale.

CRITICISED BY DR. HILGENDORF. During the course of. tho Provincinl Conference of the Canterbury "A. and P. Association, Dr; Hilgendorf, tho Biologist of the Canterbury College, rend a paper ou pure seeds, in tho course of which he levelled strong criticism at the Seeds Sale Control Bill introduced last year by,.tho Uon. T. Mackenzie. The chief, features of the. Bill were:—No. one may sell under any circumstances seed containing more than 1 per cent, of Califomian'. thistle, dodder, sweet briar, blackberry, or Bathurst bnrr, or all of these together. . Sellers must label as uncleaned any seed containing moro than C.per cent, of such weeds as fog, hairgrass, goose-grass, or all of these put together, or more than i per cent, of Capeweed, sorrel, dock, wirewood, Scotch tliistle, etc., *tc, or of all of these put together. He must also state in what year and in what country tho seed was grown, or else state that ho doesn't- know these particulars. Some Obvious Faults. The faults of this Bill,-said'Dr. Hilgendorf, arc obvious. First, it is too restrictive. Seed containing-3 per cent, of ribgrass.and 3 per cent, of fog has to be held as "lincleaned"—that is, as dirty, without any specification as to:what the impurities consist of. This-is-as good as to bar its sale, and yet such teed may be perfectly useful for many clns'svs of country.. 1 may even guess that seed containing 1 per cent, of blackberry could be sown with impunity in Nelson, where birds drop pounds of blackberry seed on every acre every year.' Yet the' New Zealand seed merchant is compelled by this Bill to send this seed out of the country or to burn it. _ "Secondly, the-Bill is too lax; and that in three directions. First, it allows seed containing 1 per cent. ■of Californiati thistle to be sown as 'clean seed.' Now, 201b.' of a''seed mixture' containing 151b. of perennial rye, 51b. .cocksfoot, and 51b. ot clovers, will contain about 7,160,000 seeds, say 7,000,000. One per cent, of this is 70,000. .That is, seed that will produce 70,000 Califomian thistle plants to Hreacre-nmy be sown as clean; 70,000 to the acre is 14 to the square yard. Would you be satisfied,.if having bought clean wed it you .14 Califorriiah tiiistlea to each square yard of your

.nl" 1 '* 13 B^ U is a ? ai " : *W lax in that it specihes tiie weeds., whose inclusion in a samp e should; cause ithaf samnlo to be labelled , 'uncleancd'-tfjg, yarrow, ribgrass, hairerass, etc., etc., but there are other weeds :-Eiiglish weeds not yet in- ™ We i heK ' ™ uh ma - v be *» bad or worse than any we have yet. I mav menhon coltWoot as an example It" a most pernicious weed liko a combinaf'°" H, (1 ° C >" and . Califo »>iau thistle, as pfl /T ,S c ° ncerne(l - Now for anything to the contrary in this Bill a dealer may sell seed containing. 5 or 10 or even 50 per cent, of colt's foot if multa" , an^ still call;.it 'clean.' I would be better to sow 5 per cent, .'of Californian thistle in -.Southland, or of Mvoet fe W*" of » D . en }'n Nelson, tna n to sow one «eed in few let °2 furthestm i\cn Zealand. We certain v wnnt *, of the. ; Tire ' "Thirdly, the Bill,is too lax in that it makes no mention of germination. The seating ot tlio year m wliich a seed is sown is some approach to this, and is intended to keep out old seed, but comparatively new seed may fail to germinate, and it is the dead seeds rather than the weeds that Be. on a farmer's, blind side, and trom which , he needs protection. • lhus the Bill errs in being too strict m tome particulars, or too lax in others hS'* 8 ? I ™^ only \) needsj, viz.V'to know/what l/if \r - v^, °- T , e P r «Kint;- and'to fctibiv how the seed itself will germinate

Some Suggestions for a Bill, j Dr. Hilgendorf gives tha following as his suggestions for a Bill:- ■ .■ ' ~ n M y. suggestions for a Bill would bens follojf:-Persons selling seed for sowrng should.furnish at the same time a certihcate giving the names of all the foreign ■seeds admixed therewith, and the number ot. each kind of foreign seeds in a one- ■ ounce sample; and also a certificate of the' germination percentage of the pure seed, it tne. certificate were not given or if on examination the seed were found to be materially different from the certificate/penalties should be imposed on the seller. Exceptions should, bo made in favour of those selling to seed merchants, as seed thus sold is not for sowing, but for re-selling; Thus any .farmer buying seed would know what impurities were in it, what number of weeds of all kinds wero in an ounce of the seed (it might • be mad? lib. .instead erf an ounce in bigger seeds, such as cereals), and he would therefore be buying his seed with wideopen eyes, and protection could surely go no further t.han that; and finally he is told what proportion of the seed is going to germinate. The best seed merchants, he believed, were willing to have such a Bill passed. "Now," continued' Dr. Hilgendorf, "before- you urge the passing of such a Bill or of any other seeds sale control Bill, I won d ask you to consider one further matter. The chief .sellers of seeds for sowing are not seed merchants—they are farmers. I'suppose that 00 per cent, of ttro gram sold for sowing is sold by farmors_to their neighbours, and much grassseed changes hands in the same way. Now this seed is usually, undressed, and this fact, combined with the large quantity' of seed thus sold, makes fanners themselves very important distributors of weeds. Some of you may have bought Southland farmers' oats with Californian thistle in. Soma of you may havn bought your neighbour's wheat for seed ajd found tares in it, and so on. To be efficient, then, as a controller of the distribution of weeds, any Bill must apply to farmers' seeds. Besides, even if you want to leave yourselves out of the Bill, the merchants would not havo it. It conld -not be expected. Sauce for the , goose is sauce for the gander. It would be neither efficient nor fair fo impose restrictions on merchants and let farmers ern any seed they liked." Even last year's Bill said 'Any person selling more than 51b. of seed' shall be liable to the nroviKions of this Bill. Would you like to have to give a certificate, howevor simple, of the purity and germination of every yarcH of <=ectl y<lll sail. . You. would iwit do it. Ygh wou'fl Ko.y. 'OiV I rjn'C Kv bothered—go to the merchants 'and get feed.' No wonder th» merchants want' a Seeds Sale Control Bill."