592 



HORTICULTURE 



Mar 1, 1915 



ii 



SEED TRADE 



AMERICAN SBEO TRADE ASSOCIATION 



onScff* — I'rfwldfnit, l^rmlt>r I.. Morsfv 

 ^an I rmiirl»4*e, Calif.; I-Tr«l Vlcc-rr**i- 

 drnl. J. M. l.npton. MKllllurk. I.. I.i 

 hrrund \ lrr-l*rf«lilrnl. K. C. I>un(«a. 

 riillKilrliililK. r>. : Hvrrrlarr and Tr«aa- 

 nrrr. C. K. KrntlcJ, Clr\fland. O.: A** I 

 ■Ulanl Nn-rrtarj. .s I tVlllard, Jr., | 

 rirtrUnd. O. 



THE SEED INDUSTRY. 



tPorlIno of nil \V. K ThiTklld- 



•an before ' laiLard Club, 



II.. ...... ...la.) 



Perhaps you have never regarded 

 the Kroat part In the wonderful scheme 

 of Nature that Is taken by the prosaic 

 and insignificant seed; still this part 

 has so much to do with the forms of 

 life In this world of ours that when 

 one pauses to give It serious consid- 

 eration he Is brought to realize that 

 seed Is one of the Indispensable things. 

 Seeds have been absolutely indispen- 

 sable since the beginning of time. I 

 admit that the telephone, the tele- 

 graph, the automobile and even the 

 submarine are wonderful creations of 

 man and are now considered almost 

 indispensable — still it is a matter of 

 record that man grew, flourished and 

 traded for centuries without any of 

 these; but has he done without seed 

 for a single day? Indeed he has not! 

 If he were deprived of these wonder- 

 ful Inventions he could still go on liv- 

 ing and developing: but deprive the 

 world of seed for but a single year and 

 all animal life will perish. 



Did you ever realize just how much 

 you owe to seed? Do you realize that 

 It has t)een the servant and the master 

 of man since the beginning of time? 

 I say the serxant because through its 

 care and manipulation seed has gone 

 on its mission of sustaining life, pro- 

 ducing its comforts and necessities. I 

 say the master because witliout seed 

 no form of animal life could live. 

 This may seem a broad statement, but 

 pause just a moment and consider 

 what a wonderful force is enveloped 

 In the unattractive shell of the seed. 

 I say that in seed you are dealing with 

 one of the greatest forces that exists 

 In this world — forces in many ways. 

 It is the source and vehicle of life, 

 food, clothing, commerce, building, 

 decoration, and in fact every phase of 

 life. It is one of the greatest dynamic 

 forces. 



You may never have observed seed 

 In its germination. Again, you may 

 have sown seed, and under your ob- 

 servation you have noticed that a 

 single bean in the process of germina- 

 tion will lift a weight of earth many 

 thousand times its own. In fact, I 

 have seen some of the stronger grow- 

 ing plants that would lift a stone that 

 vastly over-topped them in weight auu 

 size. Perhaps you have never consid- 

 ered this force from such an angle. 

 This Is a subject that might be dwelt 

 upon for hours, and to one who is in- 

 terested In this phase of plant life, af- 

 fords the theme for almost continuous 

 discussion. 



There are so many forms of plant 



tfe with which the layman It not at 

 .11 fnmlllnr timt it would Ik? unolesB 

 ■•> go Into this, other tliun to say that 

 I lie Hi'x rcliitlon is as distinctly visible 

 .iH In aninuti life Some varicllcH of 

 pluntB bear Inipt'rfeit flowers and 

 inUHl be pnllenl/.ed from other plants 

 lit the Hiinii' spM-ICM, or in some in- 

 stances, cHpeclally in the Cucurbitaca', 

 In which the male and female flowern 

 are found on the same plant. Among 

 the squoiihes this Is particularly 

 noticeable, the male flower being borne 

 on a fool or blank stalk, and after hav- 

 ing borne pollen, Immedlalely perishes. 

 A close observation has xbown that the 

 majority of this genus or group so 

 care for the male flowers that they 

 perish within a period of twenty-four 

 hours after attaining llieir full devel- 

 opment. This In Itself is a fine study 

 that leads to so much detail and dis- 

 cussion that it Is equally useless to 

 dwell upon It. 



The forms of plant life are unlimit- 

 ed. For instance, there is the Algie 

 group, which are the plants that bor- 

 der on the division line between ani- 

 mal life and plant life. They possess 

 the power of locomotion, that Is, they 

 move from place to place in water, 

 and in the marsh-lands might be con- 

 sidered a form of animal life. In fact, 

 some zoological works classify them as 

 animal life, while the majority of 

 botanists classify them as being plant 

 life. This small plant — many hun- 

 dreds of which would barely cover a 

 pin-head — produces the smallest com- 

 plete flower — so minute that the indi- 

 vidual plant itself is almost invisible 

 to the naked eye, and yet produces a 

 wonderfully beautiful little flower that 

 under the microscope shows every sec- 

 tion and part complete and perfect. 



It may be that you have never 

 thought of the wonderful inter-relation 

 of plant life and the various soils ui 

 the earth. Assuming that we start 

 with the seed and the process of germi- 

 nation has been completed, the little 

 plant is equipped with minute root 

 hairs which extend outward from the 

 roots in countless millions. These lit- 

 tle hairs come in contact with the sur- 

 face of the granules of the soil. 

 Through the various chemical condi- 

 tions that are brought about by rain, 

 sunshine, fertilizers, etc, these little 

 root hairs take up the sustaining ele- 

 ments that go to complete the develop- 

 ment of the plant. 



Soil structure in itself is immensely 

 interesting. A very important physical 

 characteristic of the soil is the way 

 the particles arrange themselves as 

 they lie in the fields. I assume that 

 you are all familiar with the forma- 

 tion of soil, but just a word here. 

 Soils are rock waste; they have beei, 

 formed by the slow crumbling and 

 breaking up of the surface rocks into 

 fine or coarse particles such as are now 

 designated by clay soils, sand soils, 

 etc. The breaking down of this rock 

 formation has gone on through tht 

 ages, and has taken eons of time. Much 

 of this material is slowly dissolved 

 and carried away or settled by rain- 

 water. The variations of heat and 

 cold have much to do with the forma- 

 tion of soil. A part of the great 

 scheme of Nature has been the partici- 

 pation of rain or snow. This has 

 frozen in the crevices of rocks, split- 

 ting them off and depositing them in 

 smaller particles where they are sub- 



ject to even greater action by the ele- 

 ments. 



.\h an IlluBtratlon uf the vast area 

 of rock or soil surface covered by these 

 little rootlets or root hairs, I will 

 just assume that we have here a 

 cube, the area of the several narfacas 

 of which measure each way one 

 yard, or a cvibic yard. This has a 

 surface area of hi square feet; break 

 this yard up into cubes of one foot or 

 'J~ cubic feet; measure; the surface 

 areas of all these cubes and you have 

 102 square feet; break this yard up 

 Into Inch cubes and you liave a surface 

 area of 1944 square feet, which Is one- 

 twentieth of an acre. You may never 

 have considered that a cubic yard so 

 spilt up is one-twentieth of an acre. 

 So that you see the unlimited surface 

 area that is presented to these root- 

 lets as a feeding place, or pasture, as 

 It were. 



.'\lmost everyone knows that the ele- 

 mental plant foods — phosphoric acid, 

 nitrogen and potash — are absolutely 

 essential to the fullest plant growth 

 and development. The source of sup- 

 ply of these necessary plant foods from 

 a commercial point of view are scat- 

 tered almost over the entire earth. 

 Saltpeter or nitrate of soda comes 

 from Chili; potash from the potash 

 mines in Germany and from the re- 

 cently developed kelp fields of Amer- 

 ica. Phosphoric acid is obtained from 

 phosphate rocks, and these are found 

 in deposits that are scattered all over 

 the surface of the earth. This also 

 weaves wonderfully and intricately In- 

 to the great scheme of Nature. 



The propagation of seeds and plants 

 is a process that would take months 

 to explain — by seed, by grafting, by 

 cuttings, by budding, or by any of the 

 recognized methods. The production 

 of new varieties is also a wonderfully 

 interesting thing. 



All of this leads us to the seed. The 

 seed in itself is not at all attractive, 

 but every civilized nation of the world, 

 and many of the uncivilized ones, con- 

 tribute their quota to the general com- 

 modity of seeds that are offered for 

 sale by the seedsman. He gathers 

 these from the remote corners of the 

 earth and distributes them to equally 

 remote places. 



1 imagine that trading in seeds was 

 one of the earliest forms of barter. I 

 know that among the uncivilized na- 

 tions seeds play a great part as coin 

 of the realm, various colored seeds 

 and varieties of seeds having various 

 values in certain communities. They 

 are used as money and as food. 



One of the particularly interesting 

 things In seeds is their period of 

 stratification. To the initiated, these 

 periods of stratification are known 

 almost to a day, and compare very 

 favorably to a parallel in animal life, 

 from the seed of the succulent radish 

 which can complete its growth within 

 the incredible short space of from 

 fourteen to sixteen or eighteen days, 

 to that giant seed of commerce, the 

 cocoanut, or the majestic Sequoia 

 which takes three years to germinate 

 and countless centuries to complete its 

 growth. 



I would not attempt to say who was 

 the first seedsman, but I imagine it 

 was Adam. History shows that recog- 

 nized dealers in seeds have existed 

 right down through the ages. Some 

 of the houses now in existence trace 



