Number of The American Garden I notice an article by "Seed Grower'* upon the law of warranty in regard to seeds sold that fail to germinate or to produce such results as the purchaser has a right to expect.

Laws are said to be based upon justice and common sense, and probably for this reason the framers of the law of warranty, assuming that every seed grower was honest till he had been proved otherwise, and that the majority of seed growers were liable to blunder in their many various ways of seed sowing, saw the justness of freeing the seedsmen from the losses likely to arise from the failure of crops, due in many cases to the ignorance of the sower.

Now, when I try any special brand of fertilizer and it fails to produce any marked or even visible result, I do not for a moment think of using this as a claim for damages. I naturally look for the manufacturer's guaranteed analysis at a certain date and compare it with the analysis made by the government. If these are satisfactory, I am content to believe that either my soil does not require the fertilizer, or that it will, at some future time, be benefitted by it. Having sustained, at various times, heavy losses through the use of what I know to have been dead seed, I instituted a series of seed soil tests for my own use, following these up from time to time by submitting the same to a Government Experiment Station. I satisfied myself that, in a way, the vitality of seeds could be dealt with very much in the same way that fertilizers now are. Most seedsmen advertise that their seeds are tested. Now, of what possible value can this piece of information be to the general public, unless the actual result of the test is stated ? Others assert that the unsold seed packages will be "cremated" in the presence of the retailers at the end of each season.

What guarantee is this that the cremation should not have taken place years before ? If the law cannot provide that the purity and productiveness of seeds be secured, it certainly can, and I believe ere long will, insist that all seed packages be dated, and that the seeds therein shall have been tested and guaranteed of a certain percentage of vitality, whether it be 30, 60 or 90 per cent. up to a fixed date, say to the time when the catalogues are being prepared, and sold at prices in a corresponding ratio to the percentage of vitality. This, I believe, would be the means of insuring confidence and cooperation between the seedsman and sower. It would give the seedsman a safe and honest standard on which to base his warranty ; it would insure the sower from the losses which he now too often has to endure, and it would do much in causing better methods to be adopted in preparing the ground for the proper seed. W. A. Hale.