TESTS OF DEPARTMENT SEEDS. 169 
wurzel has taken rank as the earliest beet in Ellis County, and Cook’s 
Favorite as the best tomato. In Austin County Cartet’s Early peas, 
planted the 9th of March, matured sufliciently for table use the 28th of 
April. The White Japan muskmelon is reported the best ever raised 
in Anderson County; and in Austin the Sprouting Dwarf Ulm cabbage 
gave two crops, the first heads having been cut off, and heads seven 
inches in diameter maturing from new sprouts. 
The Pine-apple beet is reported by a market gardener in Lewisburg, 
Ohio, to be the most satisfactory of any raised by him, being as early 
as the Bassano, hardy, of the finest flavor, and an excellent keeper. 
In Dresden, Tennessee, the American Drumhead cabbage has sur- 
passed other kinds, and the Salmon radish, in Marion, Alabama. 
In Drew County, Arkansas, the White Japan muskmelon is reported 
to be the sweetest and best-flavored variety known there. 
In Delaware County, Iowa, the Scarlet White-tipped radish, Early 
Nocera onion, Mountain Sprout watermelon, and Vilmorin’s improved 
sugar-beet, proved the best of their respective varieties; and in Rock 
Island, Illinois, as reported by the gardener of the arsenal, the Student 
parsnip, said to have originated there, the Early Nocera onion, and Til- 
den tomato, are superior varieties. The onions were fully ripe four 
months after seed-sowing. 
The Scarlet radish was fit for the table in Jefierson County, West 
Virginia, thirty-seven days after sowing. 
In Grant County, Kentucky, Rock County and other portions of Wis- 
consin, and Humboldt County, Iowa, the Schweinfurt Quintal cabbage 
grew very large, crisp, and tender. In the latter county the average 
weight is stated to be twenty pounds each. In Glencoe, Minnesota, 
they grew nearly to the size of a bushel basket; and in Milford, New 
Hampshire, they weighed ‘twelve to twenty pounds. In Lewis County, 
New York, the greatest size is reported, the average weight being about 
twenty pounds, and one, exhibited at the county fair in 1869, weighed 
forty pounds. 
In St. Louis, Missouri, the Leviathan White celery is reported crisp 
and tender, and some of the stalks grew six feet long. 
The New Jersey Hybrid cucumber proves very prolific in Liberty 
County, Georgia, excellent in flavor, and measures 13 to 15 inches in 
length. In Hampton, Virginia, this variety does equally well. 
In Merrick, Nebraska, the Achapesnorricher melon proves very deli- 
cious, equal, at least, to the Cassaba melon; and in Chico, California, 
its flesh is solid, thick, and very fine in quality; small melons weighed 
sixteen pounds; seed cavity small. 
In Stoughton, Wisconsin, a change of seed of the Connecticut seed- 
leaf tobacco, the fresh seed grown in alternate rows with the same va- 
riety grown there for some years, produced a larger crop and of better 
quality. The difference in favor of the new seed was perceptible all 
through the season. 
The jute plant is now being cultivated at St. Augustine, Florida, from 
seed furnished by the Department, and also in other localities along the 
Gulf. Egyptian cotton-seed in Florida, Texas, and Mississippi, has done 
well in the cases which have been reported. An old planter in Warren 
County, Mississippi, thinks it would make 1,200 to 1,500 pounds per 
acre, under favorable circumstances, and says it has the finest lint and 
best staple he ever saw. 
The ramie plant (Behmeria nivea) or the China grass of commerce, 
cultivated in many parts of the South, from seed furnished originally 
through this Department, is found well adapted to that portion of the 
