SEED. 93 



selected. Your seed-corn being now well planted and 

 fairly started, with proper attention and care in the 

 further management of it, you cannot fail to secure a 

 fair proportion of large and beautiful ears of perfect 

 grain. 



By following up this system, the farmer will dis- 

 cover, at the end of a very few years, that his corn 

 has gained many fold in yield, and still more in qual- 

 ity. The advantage attending a discriminating selec- 

 tion of seed is well established by the uniform results 

 of experience, and it seems incredible that any cultiva- 

 tor can be indifferent to a matter of so much conse- 

 quence. He may bestow any amount of labor upon 

 the tillage of his field, and any amount of expense 

 upon the manure, yet if he plants an inferior grain, 

 he can only gather an inferior crop. The difference 

 between thirty or forty bushels per acre, and sixty or 

 seventy bushels, may very possibly prove to be, in 

 practice, a mere question of seed. Whether his crop 

 will return him ten per cent, or fifty per cent, on the 

 cost of it > may depend entirely upon the single hour 

 that he did or did not employ in selecting his grain 

 for planting. If such considerations as these, that go 

 right into the farmer's pocket, are not sufficient to 

 arrest his attention and influence his practice, his in- 

 difference may indeed be considered hopelessly incu- 

 rable. 



II. PREPARATION OF SEED FOE PLANTING. It is a 

 very general practice, with the best farmers, to steep 

 the seed of this grain before planting, and the prac- 

 tice seems to be justified by reason and experience. 



