PLANT BREEDING 39 



can buy is poor seed. Not merely seed of poor germinating power, but seed 

 destitute of breeding, and, like a scrub cow, not entitled to register among 

 well bred animals. And yet in all their purchases there is no one point where 

 farmers are so short sighted as in the purchase of seed. This is particularly 

 true of seeds of forage and grass crops, which are so generally purchased. A 

 farmer finds in the hands of a commission merchant a lot of clover seed right 

 from the huller, and buys it, solely because it is to be had for a dollar or more 

 less per bushel than seed that a seedsman has carefully recleaned. The re- 

 cleaned seed is usually cheaper by reason of the greater number of clover seed 

 in the bushel, and it is infinitely cheaper in the fact that the farmer sows no 

 weeds with it. The larger part of the weeds that infest our farms and re- 

 duce our crops, have gotten there in foul grass and clover seed. A farmer 

 recently wrote me that his farm is so completely stocked with the narrow- 

 leaf plantain gotten in clover seed that he can no longer make a decent crop of 

 clover. I never read a better sermon on the value of clean seed than his let- 

 ter. Buying cheap seeds, or rather low priced seeds, is "saving at the spigot 

 and losing at the bunghole." Better pay two prices for clean clover and 

 grass seed than to have the inferior given to you. Farmers should be students 

 of seeds in more ways than one. They should learn to know seeds of all sorts 

 when they see them. For instance, take a sample of clover seed. It may 

 have in it as a purposely added adulteration (as is practiced by some), seeds 

 of the worthless yellow trefoil ; and the farmer who has not studied seeds will 

 not detect the adulteration till he sees his fields yellow with the trefoil in- 

 stead of red clover. It may have in it seeds of dodder that will speedily de- 

 stroy clover, and they will pass muster with the careless observer, by reason 

 of their yellow color. A good magnifying glass is of greatest import- 

 ance in the selection of seeds, and a knowledge of seeds is quite as important. 

 Hence every farmer should get a collection of the seeds of all sorts of foul 

 weeds, and get completely familiar with them, so that he can at once detect 

 what impurities are in the seed samples he is examining. The seed is the 

 starting point of the crop, and if the crop is to be a success the seed must be 

 the best. The seed is also the starting point of the weed, for a weed is merely 

 a plant where it is not wanted. Hence if we do not want weeds we should be 

 extremely careful never to sow them. Many thousands of acres of the best 

 mowing lands are so foul with weeds that there is more weed in the hay than 

 timothy or clover, and the losses to farmers all over the land, through foul 

 clover and grass seed, are so great that we cannot too urgently insist upon the 

 importance of the seed. 



