Re: was Anemone sylvestris now bad seed
- Subject: Re: was Anemone sylvestris now bad seed
- From: E*@aol.com
- Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 20:41:51 EST
In a message dated 3/11/02 6:07:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, Meum71@aol.com
writes:
<< But I do believe that more than a few people pass off seed as something
other
than what it is -- so they can get something for free from others. >>
Paul,
In a Brit volume called "The Garden Triumphant", a sort of history of
Victorians in the garden there is an account of seed suppliers - these would
be around a hundred years ago.
They would bake common seeds so they could not germinate, then add the baked
seed to a few live seeds and mail off to customers with the admonition that
the variety (cultivar was not invented at this time) was "difficult". That
way you could sell a lot more seed by distributing only a few live ones with
baked ones. Baking seed of common plants to add to the rarer seeds was
actually a business until the British government made it illegal.
You could probably have gotten hoodwinked by the Romans.
Claire Peplowski
NYS z4
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