cents a copy. Every one could be supplied with a copy and a universal color standard would thus be possible. When a sweet pea was said to be such and such a color on its wing, and such and such a color on its body, every one by reference to the chart of colors would know what was intended to be conveyed. The thing is entirely practical, and I suggest that it be taken under consideration.

President Grenell: The subject is open for remarks.

Mr. C. N. Page: The American Florist of Chicago published a chart, I believe, that has not got as many gradations as Mr. Landreth speaks of. Still it is found quite convenient. Perhaps Mr. Cropp can tell us how many shades or tints it has.

Mr. Cropp: I do not know how many it has; it is not used very much.

Mr. C. N. Page: One trouble with that would be that the colors will fade; quite a number of the tints fade out. In fact, 1 believe it would be quite difficult to secure a chart of permanent colors. If the chart should fade it would, of course, ruin its value as a standard of measurement, would it not?

Capt. Landreth: In response to that I can say that a fixed color chart could be retained in possession of a committee; and if the charts were sold at five cents apiece there would be no reason why a person should keep a chart that had faded ; because it could be so easily renewed from headquarters.

Mr. Cropp: I think Capt. Landreth's suggestion a very good one. We are sadly in need of a color chart of that description. The difficulty arises every year when we come to describe peonies, for example; we cannot tell from their description what color is meant. When we read the description of the color of a peony in a catalog we do not recognize the color from the description. It is so with flower seeds. Take asters, sweet peas and so on. One man will call a color purple; another sees it as red. I think if we could work up such a scheme it would be an immense help to seedsmen and to florists.

Mr. Leonard: I would recommend that Stecher get up such a scale and sell it to the trade.

Mr. A. McCullough: This is a matter which I understand Capt. Landreth brings up as a suggestion; and the more you think of it the greater its importance appears. It is a subject that it is difficult for us to grasp the true significance of quickly, particularly those of us who are not giving such close attention to that part of our business as to have constant use for such a chart

Therefore I suggest, if it meets with the approval of the others here, that the incoming President appoint a Committee of three to take up this suggestion of Capt. Landreth's and work it up and present the result of their deliberations in tangible shape before our next annual meeting. Possibly they can get it in such shape that we may be able to adopt it at that time.

I make that as a motion.

Motion seconded, and carried.

President Grenell: Is there any further new business? The next order of business is general discussions.

Mr. A. McCullough: During one of our meetings yesterday I believe you appointed a special committee consisting of Henry Nungesser and myself, with the request that we formulate if possible something that the convention could take action on in the matter of adulteration of seeds, more especially grass seeds. Mr. Nungesser before he left for home last evening, and myself, met and discussed the matter; and I must confess that the subject is of such vital importance that it was impossible for either or both of us to attempt to cover the ground in anything like a satisfactory manner in sufficient time to report to this convention here; therefore, all that we could say to you is to request that the Committee be continued, and possibly made a standing committee. This matter is not of a day, but it has come to stay with us. They have had rules and laws and regulations of a stringent character covering this subject in foreign countries for years, and there is no let-up there, and there will be none here. What our trade wants and demands they must look after themselves; but we must not come to a convention once in a year and take these matters up and discuss them and after talking about them a few minutes refer them to a committee, and the committee go home and get immersed in their own affairs and forget all about it, and at the next convention the committee come in and say, "We have not been able to have a meeting. We have such and such ideas, but we practically have done nothing." That will not do. It will not do to leave these matters to our political friends and expect them to regulate them for us. What do our Congressmen know as to our wants and interests? They say they are there to protect the interests of the people, that they get more votes from the farming element than any other, and if there is anything in a bill that smacks at all favorable to the farmer they are ready to take it up no matter what the consequences are to others. They are just

as liable as otherwise to get on the wrong track, so far as the interests of the Seed Trade are concerned. We must not sleep on our rights; if we do we will suffer. Therefore, your Committee would ask that this Committee be made a Standing Committee, and that care be taken to select its members from the different trades that are vitally interested, and have such material as will look after the interests of your Association put on the Committee. This matter touches the interest of every man in the grass seed business, no matter how slight his connection with it. Every such man is interested in having proper laws passed and enforced. We cannot secure this without putting our shoulders to the wheel and doing our part. (Applause)

Mr. Wood (Ky.): Concerning this matter of seed adulteration, that Mr. McCullough has brought up, I want to state a few things that have come to my knowledge in the past five or six years concerning it; and probably we can adopt some method of remedying some of the injury that has been done to some of the innocent seed dealers who have been published as selling adulterated seed, alfalfa, orchard grass, etc.

As you doubtless all know there was a bill introduced in Congress this year by Mr. South Trimble, which made it a misdemeanor to sell seeds that were adulterated in certain proportions. Mr. Trimble tried with all his might to get that bill passed by Congress. He sent the bill to the seed dealers of Louisville for their consideration and expression of opinion, and the seed dealers had a general meeting and discussed the various points of the bill. They sent a letter back to Mr. Trimble giving in full their objections to it and explaining to him that while they were all desirous of seeing pure seeds sold they did not believe any such bill if passed by Congress in the form proposed would be effective. The principal points that they took exception to with Mr. Trimble-and by the way, he never answered the letter at all-were that it would work a hardship on small dealers who were buying from larger dealers supposing that they were buying pure unadulterated seed. I do not think there are many people in this country who will knowingly mix productions. It has been done a great deal in the past, but the practice has been stopped to a large extent, and the whole number of those who will mix seeds today can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Now we explained to Mr. Trimble that seeds were very different as a commodity from foods. Seeds are not put up in hermetically sealed packets; therefore the identity of them can never be

maintained. We explained to him that if anybody wanted to do a gross injustice to a dealer all he had to do was to order five bags of clover seed, dump the contents of the bags on receipt of same, and put in some mixed seed, for example trefoil, have somebody take a sample and send it to Washington, and publish that dealer's name as selling adulterated seed, or have him punished. We also explained to him that the grass seed business especially is done on very quick action. You may buy five cars of timothy to-day, and sell it almost immediately or before it has even arrived; and the sending of samples to Washington for test to see if it was pure or not is simply out of the question; it just jeopardizes your doing business at all-practically prohibits it. We also explained to him that the proper parties to punish or publish can hardly be traced up and would cause endless disputes between the small and larger dealer; and we advised him to postpone that bill at least until the next session of Congress that we might bring the matter up here at this meeting; and also that we might bring it up with the larger dealers in the cities and get a general consensus of opinion on the bill. We also said to him that according to the circular sent out by the Dept. of Agriculture five samples are allowed to one firm only in one month for test of purity and germination; and that the force of the Dept. of Agriculture was entirely inadequate to pass on the number of seeds and samples and seed products that were to be handled in a year.

Now as you all know, you have all received the circular sent out by the Department of Agriculture in which it stated that the Department will test five samples for purity and germination for any concern in one month. I have discussed this matter with Mr. Pieters. We spent a whole, day five or six years ago trying to arrive at some conclusion whereby some bill or some regulation of the Department of Agriculture would prevent selling adulterated seeds. I discussed the matter further with Mr. Pieters, the night we went down on the moonlight excursion. Mr. Pieters, of course, is simply acting as an employe of the United States Government, and he says that what we do not want is more bills and more acts regulating this seed distribution, and he does not exactly know what is to become of it. I said to him, "Now you say five samples submitted by a given firm will be tested; you know that any large house will receive from 20 to 25 lots of seed in a day,

and five samples a month would not be a drop in the bucket." He replied, "I know that, but you cannot pick up a seed expert every day in the week; you have to take those men out of Agricultural Colleges, and give them a course of training for years before you can make them of any account." He says, "The Agricultural Department is totally inadequate to handle the business." It seems to me that until some better legislation is proposed by Congress than we have at present, the best way for us to do is to send in the samples to them, and if they do not report on them we will have the best possible defense in the event we are published, in that the Department failed to advise us that the seeds were not up to test. Mr. Pieters had in his pocket a list of dealers that is to appear as selling adulterated seeds, but he would not show it to me. Mr. Green and I were talking to him, and he remarked "I do not see either of your names on that anyhow." Do you remember that, Mr. Green?

Mr. Green: Yes, sir.

Mr. CF. Wood: I think the matter is going to be very iniquitous. They have departed from their first custom of issuing a bulletin giving the names. They are publishing those names in the Weekly Crop Report that has an enormous circulation over the United States.

Mr. Burpee: I saw some published in the daily papers of New York and Philadelphia.

Mr. C. F. Wood: The Crop Reporter has a very large circulation; the man who gets it as a rule is not a seedsman, and does not look at those things through a seedsman's eyes. We can all understand mistakes. Take Gregory, he is published as selling adulterated clover seeds. I do not believe for one instant if Gregory had known there was one iota of trefoil in any of his alfalfa that he would have sold one ounce of it. I think that we should adopt the rule that every time we receive a sample of stock, it makes no difference what it is, send it to the Department of Agriculture and ask them to pass on it for purity and germination.

Mr. A. McCullough: May I correct some statements? I think Mr. Wood made a little mistake in his remarks in mixing up South Trimble from Kentucky with the laws that now exist. This bill that he mentioned that South Trimble introduced has not a ghost of a show to pass. There has hardly been a Congress in the last twenty-five years in which there has not been more or less of this class of bills introduced; and they are referred to the Committee and never heard from