already in
cultivation would have prevented the naming of many of these stocks as
distinct varieties. What is of far more practical importance, the same
name does not always stand for precisely the same type with different
seedsmen, or even with the same seedsmen in different years; nor are the
seedsmen's published descriptions such as would enable any one to learn
from them just what type he will receive under any particular name, or
which sort he should buy in order to get plants of any desired type.
Seedsmen's catalogs are published and distributed gratuitously at great
expense, and are issued, primarily, for the sake of selling the seeds
they offer. They answer the purpose for which they are designed, in
proportion as they secure orders for seeds. Will this be measured by the
accuracy and completeness of their descriptions? I think that it needs
but slight acquaintance with the actual results of advertising to answer
in the negative, and whatever your answer may be, the answer given by
the catalogs themselves is an emphatic no.

In a recent case I looked very carefully through the catalogs of 125
American seedsmen who listed a certain variety which is very markedly
deficient in a certain desirable quality, and found that but 37 of the
125 mentioned the quality in connection with the variety at all and of
these but 7 admitted the deficiency, while 30 told the opposite of the
truth. Even if a complete, exact and reliable description of a variety
was published by disinterested persons, one could not be sure of getting
seed from seedsmen which would produce plants of that exact type, since
there is no agreement or uniformity among them as to the exact type any
varietal name shall stand for.

One way of getting seed of the exact type wanted is to do as the South
Jersey growers did: go to work and breed up a stock which is uniformly
of the type wanted; but this involves more painstaking care than many
are willing to give, though I think not more than it would be most
profitable for them to expend for the sake of getting seed just suited
to their needs.

A second and easier way is to secure samples of the most promising sorts
and from the most reliable sources and grow them on one's own farm;
select the stock which seems best for him and buy enough of that exact
stock for several years' planting, and in the meantime be looking for a
still better one. Tomato seed stored in a cool, dry place will retain
its vitality for