A CAUTION TO COLONISTS.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 314, 23 October 1860, Page 2

A CAUTION TO COLONISTS.

WHY SEEDS FROM ENGLAND SO OFTEN FAIL.

It is certainly with no feeling of exultation that we have received the daily revelations of the dishonesty with which our mercantile system is tainted. Commerce is the peculiar pursuit of Englishmen. To commerce we owe our greatness. If, then, that which is our glory prove our shame, how great is that shame! Still it is better to know the extent of the evil than to go on living in a fool's paradise, and thinking, as we have been taught, that British morality is at such a vast height above the morality of any other people. Individual self-respect is a gcol thing, and so is national self-respect; but it may degenerate into an overweening pride and contempt for othert. We have seen how cotton lords, who would resent to the death the imputation of telling a He by word of mouth, use short measure &; d false weight, and avouch in writing that they are true, in the way of business. The following letter, sent to one of the principal firms of seedsmen in Scotland, discloses a deliberate and cruel system of fraud in another direction. April 27,1860. Gentlemen—Being in possession of a new and improved method of killing seed without the use of any chemicals, so that the seed lias not that unpleasant smell it has when killed by the old method, and does not look perished if it be crushed. A man, by the new proi-ess, may kill 10 or 12 quarters of seed per day, and the apparatus \a so constructed that it is impossible for .a single seed to leave it alive; and one great advantage is, if you want a sack of seed in a hurry, you may kill a sack of rape or turnip, and h*ve it fit for use in an hour. Seed, in the process of killiny increases in weight and measure, and when yon send it out to be killed, the seed-killer keeps the extra weight and measure. If you think it worth your attention, I will send you a small working model, 80 that you may kill a few pounds in a few minute^ and institutions for making a large one, on receipt of a P. 0.0. for £3. The business-like openness and simplicity of this composition shows that the writer sees nothing to be ashamed of in his proposition. To " kill 10 or 12 quarters of seeds," is evidently a thing which comes quite natural to a large seed merchant. But many of our readers will probably not divine the object of destroying the vitality of seed. Well, we will explain. The comparative cheapness of rape and mustard seed, "and the identity of their appearance, would enable the fraudulent seedsman to use them safely and advantageously to adulterate his turnip-seed, were it not that the growing of the plants would reveal his dishonesty, and destroy his power of again taking the farmer in. The young rape and mustard plants would be damning evidence of his guilt. Now, it is to destroy this evidence that he " kills " the seed. The farmer finds indeed, that his "plant" of turnips hag failed ; but it is easy to say that the fault is the land, or the slug, or the fly, or the weather. And so the Scotch seedsman goes on selling his killed rape and mustard seed for Swedes, and grows fat, and wipes his mouth, and keeps the Sabbath, and hears "the word" with all the unctuous sanctimoniousness of undetected fraud.—Guardian.