Mr. Editor : "Weeping Sufferer" has struck a lead, as we say at the mines, which I hope to see followed up. He is after the fraudulent nurserymen. May he lack no recruits to join in the hue and cry, until they skedaddle across the mountains into the Pacific, and take up their abode among their Chinese brethren. A pretty sure way to get a good fruit tree from a known plant-swindler is to contract for some worthless sort which is so out of date as not to be had. He, determined not to be outdone, puts in something good, in order to satisfy his evil disposition by supplying an article not contracted for. To illustrate:

Several years ago, I had the misfortune to allow a person of this class to become indebted to me. He was apparently a man of large means; but I knew that he never paid his contracts except in nursery-stock. I had resolved to cultivate fine Pears. I knew he had some young dwarfs, just budded with good varieties. I also know, if I contracted for these, I was quite sure to get those not budded at all, or, if so, of worthless sorts. I therefore proposed to take in payment, Summer Bell, Summer Bon Chretien, and Bergamot Suisse, as being of old and tried sorts. My nurseryman was at first a little non plussed; said they were getting very scarce; great demand; large orders; becoming popular; doubts as to newer varieties succeeding; dwarfs an experiment; might not succeed; rather believed they would; knew a party that had a few; held at a high figure; lived a hundred miles up the country; expensive going there; mail but once a week; could get them to oblige a friend.

The result was, I contracted for the number of trees wanted, and had the satisfaction of knowing that they were dug out on his own grounds, from the recently budded varieties, and have this year enjoyed Beurre Giffard, Duchesse de Berry d'Ete, Stevens' Genesee, etc., to the gratification of myself and family, feeling satisfied that if I had contracted for these varieties, I should have been choked off from Pear culture entirely, and have been ready now, with many of his customers, to declare Dwarf Pears a failure. Had your correspondent tried my plan, he probably would have got Delaware instead of spurious Dianas, and had less reason to "weep" or "suffer" from the imposition. There is this difference between us; I had my eye teeth cut a quarter of a century ago; his canines are just appearing. But, aside from all badinage, why do not the nurserymen unite in their might and put down these few pretenders who throw such discredit on their profession 1 What if a rascal or two has made money by cheating? they have prostituted talents, which, honestly applied, would have quadrupled their worldly goods,, and laid up treasure in heaven at the same time. What their chance for the future is, I will not presume to say. Honesty is the best policy.

I know more than one nurseryman who has tried it successfully; not he, however, who declines to make restitution for a fraud, or he who refuses to pay his honest debts under the plea that he "can not claim any thing as his own," because it has been previously legally ! transferred to his wife or son.

But, Mr. Editor, there is another grievous evil which your patrons are suffering from yearly, that you alone can correct by holding the parties up to scorn and ridicule. The amount involved is so small that each prefers to "bear the ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of;" that is, to put up with a small fraud rather than to go to law for redress. I allude to the frauds in seeds. The nuisance has, however, become so extensive, that "it is time to speak." Every country store, and every dry goods, grocery, and drug store in all our country towns are loaded down with garden and other seeds, which often remain over from year to year, and have no vitality. These are put up by unknown persons, living in obscure places, so that they can not be hunted up or exposed. This might be corrected, if in each country town some one person of character would undertake the seed business, and assume the responsibility to sell none but good seed, purchasing their stock from well-established houses in the larger cities, or from men of character who grow them.

The frauds in seeds affect a class of people who are less able to bear the disappointment, than those who own large tracts of land on which to plant orchards and vineyards; they are the laborers, market gardeners, mechanics, and men of small income, who cultivate patches, and who wish their families to enjoy vegetables, flowers, and small fruits, and to whom it is a serious loss to buy old beans or onion seed, which they find, when too late, will not vegetate; or who, if he can spare fifty cents for a dozen Japan Pink seed, is terribly disgusted to find that what he bought for Dianthus Chinensis Heddewigii Flora Plena Hybridus Imperialis, proves to be but a common Pink.

They also affect a class that can not well gird on the sword to combat the common enemy, and who, unfortunately, do not often enough know their own power to wield the pen in self-defence. I mean the ladies; and these, you and I, Mr. Editor, are bound to protect. One who assumes to overset my doings, has in her border purple and white Candytuft; seeing "scarlet" advertised, remits the requisite number of postage stamps, and receives white and purple mixed. She can not be made to comprehend how these colors can be combined to make scarlet, red being an original color. From another she orders "Petunias, mixed," for bedding, which all come up of one color. Again, six Dahlias, described in catalogue as "very beautiful, making a fine assortment for a small border," prove to be all a dingy brown, and so near alike that an expert can see little or no difference, and no one can discover any beauty. But the crowning annoyance was the reception of a dozen nicely folded papers, labelled "German Astere," in which not a single seed could be found.

A dollar's worth of patience was expended before it was stated to be "a mistake." If a lady makes "a mistake," she has to pay dearly for it; why should not a seedsman?

I say nothing about the Mummy Corn, Australian Coffee, Japanese Wheat, and Indian Hemp, for these frauds are mostly exposed in the agricultural journals, and he who will not read them deserves to lose ten times the subscription every year. But the seedsman who knowingly sells bad seeds, barters his conscience to the devil for a very small sum, even if the price of his five or ten cent papers is all profit. Can not your self protecting association include this class of dealers also? Can they not be brought up with a round turn, and made to be honest from fear of exposure if not so? Let seedsmen be notified, that when they put up and vend worthless seeds, they are to be held bound for the loss, and for all the labor and disappointment caused thereby; that for five or ten cents received for trash, they will be expected to pay as many dollars, and they will soon understand what is meant by "a hundredfold".

[We feel deeply mortified in being compelled to acknowledge how much truth there is in complaints like the above. We had indulged the hope at one time that the distribution of worthless seed would be so entirely monopolized by the Patent Office as to leave none in the market for small venders. It was natural to suppose, since the government, at great expense, sent to Europe to buy this class of seed, that the home market had been first exhausted; but this seems not to have been the case, and the government, with all its resources, has been out witted. "Beans" (and he knows) tells us what a thriving business is done in his town, and we know that it is more or less common in a great many others. It was only a few days since that we saw an acre of ground that had been nicely prepared and sown with turnip seed; but there were not two hundred plants on the whole acre. An examination showed that the seed had been worthless. Similar cases are brought to our notice almost daily, till we are at last compelled to admit that the evil is wide-spread indeed. No respectable seedsman, of course, would knowingly sell an impure or worthless article; but the misfortune is, that his name is freely used by country dealers, and he suffers in consequence.

It is a common practice with them to buy a little fresh seed in the spring, and mix it with that which has been left over from last year's sales; and in this way some kinds are eked out for several years. Some parties must know that they are thus practicing a grave fraud; others, we believe, are ignorant of the wrong they do; but the evil is none the less, and measures ought to be taken to arrest it. This may be done in several ways, such as sending to our large cities to seedsmen of known respectability, buying of duly authorized agents, exposing and denouncing all cheats, etc. If is hard, however, for a poor man, who only wants a few seeds of a kind, to be compelled to send fifty or a hundred miles for them, at the expense of postage or freight. It is better to do this, however, than to lose the fruits of a year's labor. We should buy no seeds at a country store, unless the proprietor could show undoubted vouchers for their freshness and purity; and we should insist upon full restitution for all errors. In buying a piece of cloth, we can generally trust to a personal examination; but in buying seeds, we have to rely entirely upon the vender's honesty.

We agree with "Beans;" "honesty is the best policy." Having said this much on one side, we must add, on the other, that there are persons who do not know - beans, we came near writing; but we mean, who do not know how to plant seed so as to insure its vegetation even when it is good; all seeds, with them, are planted alike. We should probably help both parties out of some of their troubles by adding some remarks on seed planting, and will do so at another time. If every man and woman only "knew beans," things would work along much more smoothly. - Ed].