6o 



AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS 



important to know how good a yielder you are planting. 

 You should watch during harvest and select for propagation 

 for the next year only such plants as yield best. 



We should exercise fully as much care in selecting 

 proper individuals from which to make a cutting or a layer 

 as we do in selecting a proper individual of live stock to 

 breed from. Just as we select the finest Jersey in the herd 

 for breeding purposes, so we should choose first the variety 

 of plant we desire, and then the finest individual plant of 



that variety. 



If the variety of the potato 

 that we desire to raise be 

 Early Rose, it is not enough 

 to select any Early Rose 

 plants, but the very best 

 Early Rose plants to furnish 

 our seed. 



It is not enough to select 

 large, fine potatoes for cut- 

 tings. A large potato may not produce a bountifully yielding 

 plant. // will produce a plant like the one tJiat produced it. 

 It may be that this one large potato was the only one pro- 

 duced by the original plant. If so, the plant that grows from 

 it will tend to be similarly unproductive. Thus you see the 

 importance of selecting in the field a plant that has exactly 

 the qualities desired in the new plant. 



One of the main reasons why gardeners raise plants 

 from buds instead of from seeds is that the seed of many 

 plants will not produce plants like the parent. This failure 

 "to come true," as it is called, is sometimes of value, for it 

 occasionally leads to improvement. For example, suppose 



FIG. 47. LAYERING 



