22 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



tutes a new thing for an old ono. The domahi of agricultural 

 possessions is enlarged, when, keeping the old variety in all its 

 purity, we get another fully equal to it, and maintain both. 



The importance of seed propagation is not, I think, suf- 

 ficiently felt among husbandmen. But there is no variety yet 

 discovered, which will not, in common phrase, run itself out. in 

 this way. As a mere matter of policy, it must seem obvious, 

 that whoever wishes to keep up a stock of the earliest pease, 

 must save the seeds of those blossoms which were fertilized 

 before other pease were in bloom. Whoever wishes to keep a 

 squash, or cucumber, or melon, true to that quality which 

 belongs to its vine, must protect its blossoms from the contacts 

 of bees and bugs for one day. Whoever has a favorite peach, 

 whether itself grown on a budded stock or not, can raise the 

 same in successive generations, by securing a single blossom 

 from all admixture from other trees for three days, — one before, 

 and two after its opening, — himself attending, if necessary, to 

 the fertilization from its own stamens. I have no faith to 

 believe that seed culture is imiversallij practised on any such 

 principles. It surely, however, requires very little common 

 sense to perceive that a cultivator cannot afford to cull his 

 seeds of any kind, with his eyes blinded ; or, which is much 

 the same thing, with his mind inactive and sluggish. 



This attention of every farmer to seed culture has become 

 economically the more necessary, because the deleterious 

 hybridization of seed-plants is now a matter of general com- 

 plaint. It has not escaped your notice that it is quite impossi- 

 ble to find a place where any one can buy seeds warranted by 

 the vender to be uniformly genuine. A prudent seedsman, 

 with his eye teeth cut, and his eyes open, will not be likely to 

 commit himself farther than he who told the purchaser, " Sow 

 them carefully, and if they don't come true to the name on 

 the paper, bring' them back, and you shall have your money 

 again." The manner of raising seeds renders'it unavoidably a 

 mere chance whether you buy a pure article or not; and this 

 remark does not question the highest integrity of the dealer. 

 The mischief lies not at his door ; but it Avill continue to bo 

 experienced until seed culture, under scientific directions, is 

 made a business by itself. And meantime, I believe the 

 farmer can better afford to raise his own seeds, if he will do it 



