44 BEAN CULTURE 



Buying the seed. — Four rules of great importance 

 in securing good seed have been laid down. These 

 are: (i) Buy only of reliable seedsmen, (2) buy the 

 best grade of seed, (3) insist upon a guarantee of 

 the percentage of seed which will germinate and (4) 

 test the seed before planting. Poor and cheap grades 

 of seed are really more costly than the high priced. 

 It may be necessary to buy five or six bushels of low 

 grade seed in order to secure as much seed that will 

 germinate as is contained in one bushel of good seed. 

 The farmer will save time, money and labor by buying 

 the best quality of seed. At the same time he will 

 avoid seeding his farm to weeds. 



How to test seeds. — A guaranty of the quality of 

 seed should be demanded from the seedsman, whose 

 claims may be easily substantiated or disproved by 

 a germination test. For this purpose a piece of blot- 

 ting paper or of flannel may be moistened and folded 

 together after placing a counted number, say 100, of 

 the seed between the folds. The paper or cloth 

 should then be laid on a plate, covered with another 

 inverted plate and placed in a warm room. Several 

 days should be allowed for the test. The germi- 

 nated seed may be counted and removed from day to 

 day, and at the end of the test the percentage of 

 good seed may be easily computed. The standard 

 of germination adopted by the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture for clean seed, harvested and 

 preserved under favorable conditions and not over 

 one year old, is for beans 90 per cent. This figure 

 is based on results secured in a seed testing appara- 

 tus where the conditions of temperature and mois- 

 ture could be controlled. When seed is tested in 

 soil the germination is likely to be 10 or 15 per cent 



