1 86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [JaU-, 



pods to every plant, the average seed plants produce from 

 three to seven hundred thousand seed. It can be seen that in 

 view of the large number of seed produced by the seed plants 

 it is necessary to save but few plants in order to secure enough 

 seed to produce plants to set out a large field. For a field of 

 ten acres a dozen plants is all that it is necessary to save in 

 the field, and after the examination of the cured tobacco it is 

 necessary to save only the best two or three of these plants for 

 seeding the following season. The fact that a minute tobacco 

 seed, so small that it takes nearly half a million to weigh an 

 ounce, produces a large, thrifty, and rapidly growing plant, 

 and a progeny of five hundred thousand children in a season, 

 is one of the wonders of plant life. Where only two or three 

 seed plants are saved it is desirable to save the seed in sepa- 

 rate samples, and divide the seed bed into two or three sec- 

 tions, sowing each section with the seed from one seed plant. 

 The seedlings from each section should be set out in separate 

 portions of the field, so that the field can be made a test of the 

 transmitting power of the seed plants. The selection of seed 

 plants for the next year should be made from the selection of 

 the field in which the plants are most uniform and of the most 

 desirable type. In this way improvement in the uniformity 

 of the type can rapidly be secured by the grower. 



SAVING SEED UNDER BAG. 



The tobacco plant is naturally self-fertile, that is, the seed 

 is the product of a single parent. However, in the field bees 

 and other insects carry the dust-hke pollen from flower to 

 flower and effect cross fertilization, as in the case of the clover 

 plant. The tobacco flowers contain a sweet, syrup-like nectar, 

 that bees, humming birds, and many kinds of insects feed upon. 

 In passing in and out of the flowers they naturally brush 

 pollen from the flowers over their bodies, and in this way carry 

 the pollen from flower to flower, plant to plant, and field to 

 field. This cross fertilization in the same variety is detri- 

 mental to the yield, the quality, and the uniformity of the to- 

 bacco grown from such cured seed. In this way tobacco is a 

 marked exception to most plants, many of which show increased 

 vigor of growth as a result of cross fertilization in the variety. 

 Darwin has explained this condition by comparing the to- 

 bacco plant to peas and a few other exotic plants which have 



