242 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[August, 



comes to anybody from that variation. But one 

 in a thousand, saved for seed purposes, would 

 give material for a very different story. So it 

 becomes necessary to guard against even that 

 one chance. Now by planting the selected typi- 

 cal plants in the middle of the fifty, the bees 

 cannot get to them till they have already been 

 over some twenty-five acres, and the chance of 

 the plant receiving aught but its own pollen is 

 very small. Few, perhaps, would take the trou- 

 ble and go to the expense of so much precaulion 

 to have absolutely pure seeds ; but those seeds 

 men who have a high reputation to sustain, can- 

 not afford to risk the slightest chance of losing 

 it. But quite independent of these precautions 

 comes the test of the trial ground. A sample of 

 every variety sold is sown, and samples of the 

 same variety as sold by other seedsmen wher 

 ever they can be obtained. All of the same 

 variety are then grown side by side, and gone 

 over day by day, every peculiarity being entered 

 in a trial diary. In this way they can tell, posi 

 tivelj', whether any mixture of their own has 

 occurred in spite of all precaution — whether it 

 is the same as others sold under that name — 

 whether other people's stock is true or pure, 

 and, should it be necessary to buy in stock 

 through some unexpectedly large demand, they 

 know whose stock is the best to draw from. By 

 having all the varieties under culture in this 

 trial way, they also see which variety is the best 

 adapted to the several uses required of them, 

 and they learn which variety is the best to grow. 

 By this plan there is no necessity to grow a 

 large stock of a poor kind. Knowing absolutely 

 which is the best, it is as easy to grow a large 

 stock of that as of an inferior kind. How im- 

 portant all these laborious processes are to per- 

 fection in seed raising was frequently illustrated 

 as we passed through the trial grounds. Here, 

 for instance, are rows of the Tom Thumb Let- 

 tuce, many samples from different sources. 

 There was no doubt but they were all genuine 

 Tom Thumb, but while one sample had close, 

 dense heads, though the burning month of June 

 had gone over them, the row next to this from 

 another sample had all run to seed ! Thus the 

 valuable lesson is learned as to which locality 

 will produce a lettuce which will resist heat, and 

 there the seed crop will be sown. In the matter 

 of tests, also much that is actually new is learned. 

 Here again is a lot of the famous American 

 Wonder Pea. But alongside is one certainly 

 four days earlier. Four days is not much to an 



amateur, but when one has perhaps ten or a 

 hundred acres, if he can get his heavy crop into 

 market four days earlier than his neighbor, he 

 has a " sofi thing." But all this trouble has only 

 brought us to the preservation of the variety, 

 not merely true to name, but up to a high stand- 

 ard of quality. The enormous cost of getting 

 everything ready is appalling. Here is a stable 

 for seventy horses, or perhaps mules, in which 

 one man is wholly occupied in feeding them. 

 There is the blacksmith and wheelwright's shop 

 in which every wagon, cart, plough, and iinple- 

 nient used on the i)lace is made, and in which 

 models of new implements are made and tested 

 before offering them to purchasers. Around 

 are a score or more of huge barns, each costing 

 from five to ten thousand dollars, fitted up with 

 numerous, permanent and temporary floors for 

 drying the various seeds before and after thrash- 

 ing. Each of these dry out about ten different 

 crops a year, and has to be carefully swept and 

 cleaned out every time, lest perchance a stray 

 seed of one variety may get in with another, and 

 mix the breed. Around are some thirty tene- 

 ment houses in which laborers, with their fami- 

 lies, live and board those who are single and 

 have no homes of their own. At our visit some 

 one hundred and fifty hands were employed on 

 the seed farm in this way. These plant and 

 weed, and reap and thrash, and yet the work is 

 but half begun. It has to be barrelled or bagged, 

 as the case may be, the barrels stored away in 

 huge granaries, and the bags hung up in dry 

 barns, where the air may circulate freely about 

 them. The great work of distribution now be- 

 gins. The deft fingers of women then take their 

 turn. In the seed store and on the farm some 

 two hundred are eniployed. The bags are here 

 made, filled, closed, and so labeled and stamped 

 that they cannot be opened without destroying 

 the Landretn brand, and thus it becomes impos- 

 sible for the firm to be fraudulently made re- 

 sponsible for inferior seed. Mf^tst of the work is 

 done by the piece, and it is amazing to see the 

 proficiency of the workers. The writer had just 

 returned from a visit to the famous silk factory 

 at Allentown, where he was amazed at the dex- 

 terity with which the women caught, tied and 

 manipulated the gossamer films which were as 

 absolutely nothing between his coarse fingers. 

 But it is an even chance whether the seed paper 

 maker, the package filler, or the package closer, 

 would not beat in manual dexterity the handler 

 of the silky threads. The filler holds a handful of 



