358 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Different varieties of the best readily intermix when not near each other for 

 poeding, as do al.so the different kinds of carrot, cabbage, and turnip. A single 

 umbel of carrot seed sowed last season for the purpose of testing the fact pro- 

 duced roots which varied greatly in color; some were orange and some were 

 pale yellow, with numerous intermediate shades. 



WHAT PART OF THE STEM PRODUCES TUE BEST SEED. 



It is the prevailing opinion that the central shoot or central umbel produces 

 the finest seeds. The side shoots are later in development, slender and weak, 

 and the seeds they produce, if they differ in no other respect, are smaller and 

 generally less perfectly matured. Among umbelliferous plants, as parsnips, 

 celery, carrots, &c., the central head is hrst put forth, is almost invariably 

 much the largest, blossoms and matures in advance of all others, and the seeds 

 will much outweigh the product of any other single umbel that may afterwards 

 be produced. It is proper to add that as among animals so among plants, 

 "like, in a greater or less degree, produces its like." The practice of allow- 

 ing the parsnip to remain in the ground during winter, and to be grown for 

 seed where they were sown, is wrong. The better course is to take them up 

 in autumn, and in spring — as is the custom with careful growers of the beet 

 and carrot — select the smoothest and most symmetrical roots for transplanting ; 

 as when allowed to seed where they were sown, there can, of course, be no 

 choice of roots, and they must consequently be saved indiscriminately from 

 deformed and branching roots, as well as possibly from the more smooth and 

 regular. 



The seeds of the cabbage obtained from decapitated stems are comparatively 

 worthless. For a long period it was almost the universal practice, both in this 

 ".ountry and Europe, to cut off the heads from time to time during the fall and 

 winter as they were required for use, or for the mai-ket, and to set the stumps 

 in spring for seed. The result of this course was precisely what might have 

 been foreseen — the heads grew small, comparatively loose and open, and, what 

 was soon worse, a large proportion of the plants refused to form any head at 

 all. But when gardeners and seed-growers selected the largest, most solidf 

 and finest -formed heads, preserved them carefully during winter, and set the 

 plants entire in spring, the effect was almost immediately apparent, not alone 

 in the increased proportion of the plants producing heads, but also in the larger 

 size, greater solidity, and general superiority of the heads themselves. Com- 

 pared with the trouble and expense attending the preserving and setting the 

 whole plant — involving, of course, the loss of the head on the one hand, and 

 that of selling the heads and raising the seeds from the headless stems on the 

 other — the difference in cost is necessarily larger ; but the real superiority of 

 one kind of seed over the other can hardly be overestimated. The fine heads 

 of lettuce seen in our market late in winter and during spring have been the 

 result of this course of culture — the selection of the finest-formed and most 

 compact heads for seed-plants. 



Certain rules observed in the selection of seeds of the bean will make the 

 plant dwarfish or increase their height and size — will make a variety earlier 

 and less productive, or later with increased yield. 



Take the horticultural as an example of the running varieties. If the first 

 ripened pods — which are the lowest — are selected for seed, and if this practice 

 is continued for a few years, the variety will become almost as early as th^- 

 Early China, and, indeed, almost as dwarf. Or, if the green pods are plucked 

 for use during the summer, and the few pods at the extremities of the vines 

 that have escaped being served at table, be resorted to for seed, the plants will 

 be tall, comparatively slender, and the pods will form late in the season and 

 high up the stem. The same is true of the dwarfs. The best course in small 

 gardens, Avhere the grower plants his own seed, is to leave a sufficient number 



