478 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



want to mate clear is the difference in the vigor of growth between 

 seeds of the same variety when sown in different localities, and 

 the difference — the amazing difference — in the productiveness 

 of selected large plump seeds over small seeds of the same variety. 



The seed of a cereal is a plant in embryo, and a store of food 

 for the nourishment of the young plant after it wakens into activity 

 (germinates), and until it takes in food through its rootlets and 

 leaves. The germination of the seed is not the so-called creation 

 of life. That happened when the plant was fertilized; and the 

 seed is an embryo, with a store of food lying close by it and within 

 the same skin. The store of food which composes the greater part 

 of the seed is for the maintenance of the young plant until it is 

 able to take enough nourishment through its leaves and rootlets. 

 A young plant is wakened up as soon as the moisture and warmth 

 are sufficient, and its food close by is prepared under the same 

 conditions. 



Sometimes an embryo plant is imperfectly formed and weak; 

 and tests show that imperfectly ripened seeds, under ordinary 

 conditions, do not give nearly as good a crop as fully ripened seeds 

 in each of which both the embryo and its food have been fully 

 prepared. Those seeds which germinate most quickly are the best, 

 and it has been proved over and over again that heavy seeds give 

 larger and better crops than small seeds of the same sort. The rea- 

 son seems to be that in one case (large seeds), the supply of food for 

 the young plant is plentiful when it most needs it, while in the other 

 case (small seeds), the food supply may be insufficient to nourish 

 the young plant adequately at the most critical time when it is 

 tender and struggling for survival. Under the most favorable con- 

 ditions of temperature, moisture, and food supply in the soil, small 

 seeds might give as much in crop as large seeds. On comparatively 

 poor land, in unfavorable seasons, is where the small seeds give 

 their worst returns. The farmer who has rich soil in a fine con- 

 dition of tilth is the only one who can afford to sow small seeds, 

 and the risk of comparatively small crops is great even then. 



The following quotation from an article in the Year Book of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture for 1898, shows 

 what may be expected from a careful system of selection of seed 

 grain from the most vigorous and most productive plants in any 

 plot or field, when that is followed up with intelligence from year 

 to year : 



