MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 407 



Seeds from viues are good for four or five years if kept ina warm, 

 dry place. If allowed to freeze they are worthless. Carrot and beet 

 seeds are good only one year after growth ; radishes, two or three 

 years. Onion seeds will germinate when two years old, but the plants 

 are inferior. 



After you have gathered your seeds much depends on keeping 

 them from moisture and drying air. Corn should be kept in a dry, cool 

 place, where the temperature is uniform. Most garden seeds keep best 

 in a dry, warm place ; a cupboard near a chimney is a suitable place. 

 Do not attempt to keep seeds in the garret over the kitchen. The 

 continued warmth from the stove below will destroy the germinative 

 power of the seeds. The best receptacle for keeping seeds in are well 

 corked bottles, having thick paper pasted around them to exclude the 

 light air. — Dola Fay, Calmar, Iowa, in American Horticulturist. 



Prevention of Potato Scab. 



In a recent bulletin of the New Jersey Experiment Station is de- 

 scribed a series of experiments with potatoes, an effort being made 

 to prevent scab by the use of different strengths and methods of ap- 

 plication of corrosive sublimate and Bordeaux mixture. In the cul- 

 tural belts the plants were sprayed for the prevention of leaf diseases, 

 but so little disease was present on the checks as to render these ex- 

 periments of little value. At harvest the tubers were weighed and 

 the weight of sound and scabbed potatoes ascertained. The author's 

 conclusions as to the value of the treatment, as shown by his experi- 

 ments are as follows : 



Potatoes soaked in and sprayed in the open rows with quarter- 

 strength corrosive sublimate gave a larger yield and a lower per cent 

 of scab than did either of the belts treated with half and full-strength 

 solutions of the same compound. Similar results followed the treat- 

 ment of seed potatoes with quarter-strength Bordeaux mixture. 



Although there was but little api^arent difference in value between 

 corrosive sublimate aud Bordeaux mixture, the former is considered 

 preferable on account of its being more easily prepared, and as it is of 

 a uniform strength throughout admits of a much greater quantity of 

 potatoes being treated at one time than does the Bordeaux mixture, 

 which soon settles unless stirred. 



The cutting of the "seed" before soaking in Bordeaux mixture 

 showed very emphatically the importance of applying the fungicide to 

 the uncut potatoes and preparing them afterward for planting. 



