SEEDS AND SEEDAGE 



SELAGINELLA 



3137 



The seeds usually offered by seedsmen in their cata- 

 logues, or in the seed-stores throughout the country, 

 are secured from various parts of the world, and the 

 seedsman who sells seed at retail to the planter direct 

 seldom grows his own seed, although some of the larger 

 firms now conduct seed-farms on which they grow cer- 

 tain specialties, and most of them conduct trial and 

 experimental grounds. 



The wholesale seed business is divided into two dis- 

 tinct lines, one of so-called grass-seed dealers, who buy 

 from the farmers such things as grass seeds, clover seeds, 

 and farm seeds used for planting large areas; the other 

 line is the general seed-dealer who carries a limited 

 stock of grass seeds, clover seeds, and the like, and 

 specializes on vegetable seeds and flower seeds. He is 

 usually not a grower of seed, but buys from seed-grow- 

 ers who specialize on a few things. 



A large part of the vegetable and flower seed used in 

 America is imported from England, France, Germany, 

 Holland, and Denmark, especially such things as beets 

 and mangels, cabbage and cauliflower, turnip and ruta- 

 baga, and the small flower seeds. In Germany, the 

 seed-growers usually own or lease their own seed-farms, 

 while in other countries, especially France, much of 

 the seed-growing is conducted on the subcontracting 

 plan, the grower keeping an agent in a certain locality 

 and letting out small contracts with the farmers. The 

 finer vegetable seeds and flower seeds, as well as the 

 larger lines, are grown in this way. 



In America, the smaller vegetable seeds and sweet 

 peas are grown principally in California, where the 

 growers own or lease their seed-farms, and practically 

 all of their capital is invested in the seed business. 

 What are considered the "smaller vegetable seeds" and 

 "California specialties" are carrot, endive, leek, lettuce, 

 onion, parsnip, parsley, radish, salisfy, and flowering 

 sweet peas. The preeminent California specialties are 

 lettuce, onion, and sweet pea seed. There are no less 

 than 5,000 acres, principally in the coast counties of 

 central California, devoted to these three things. Pole 

 beans, culinary peas, and some vine seeds are also pro- 

 duced in central California. These are grown on the 

 subcontracting plan, much as in other places. Peas are 

 now grown largely in Utah, Idaho, and Montana, as 

 well as in Wisconsin, Michigan, and northern Xew York. 

 Sweet corn and vine seeds are grown largely in Nebraska, 

 northern Ohio, New York and New England. Water- 

 melon seed is grown largely in the South; also okra. 

 The best cabbage seed is produced in Long Island and 

 to some extent in the country about Puget Sound in 

 Washington. Pepper and eggplant, and some tomato 

 seeds, are grown in New Jersey, and tomato seed is 

 also grown in Michigan and California. Various other 

 items are grown in greater or less quantities in various 

 sections, such as beet and parsnip in New England, 

 radish in Michigan, turnip in Pennsylvania, but the 

 main sources of supply of these last-named articles 

 are the European countries previously mentioned. 



Seed-growers who subcontract their crops, usually 

 operate large farms for the production of their stock 

 seeds, where they do their selecting and developing 

 and where they grow the seeds which they send out to 

 the farmer to produce crops for them. Such crops as 

 are subcontracted are "rogued" and inspected through- 

 out the season by the grower's agent. Seed-growing, 

 as it affects vegetable and flower seeds, is conducted 

 more or less scientifically and represents a very high 

 state of intense farming, perhaps the highest known 

 out-of-doors. 



Seeds must be produced hi regions where they can 

 be grown not only profitably on account of climatic 

 conditions and abundant labor, but also in sections 

 where the quality can be maintained. Climates with 

 a cold winter are usually required for biennial crops, 

 such as carrot, beet, onion; when grown in California, 

 the strains must be often renewed. Certain other crops 



require a dry summer climate, such as lettuce and sweet 

 peas; other kinds require a moist or wet summer 

 climate, as cabbage and cauliflower. 



Many seed-growers now specialize on one or two 

 lines, and there are large growers who raise nothing but 

 tomato; others nothing but cabbage; others who raise 

 only sweet corn; others field corn; and others confine 

 themselves to watermelon. Owing to the frequency 

 of crop failures in seed production, as in other farm 

 crops, most seedsmen contract with at least two 

 sources of supply and usually both widely separated. 



Commission box assortments comprise one of the 

 principal methods pursued in America for the sale of 

 seed. This plan places with merchandise and grocery 

 stores an assortment of staple seeds in flat papers and 

 cartons. These assortments are usually sold on com- 

 mission, but some firms sell the assortments outright. 

 The boxes and unsold seed are collected every year and 

 returned to the home firm, where the papers are torn, 

 the seed tested and repapered with a proportion of new 

 seed. Some twenty firms are engaged in this line of 

 seed distribution, and one firm has nearly 150,000 

 customers to whom it consigns these assortments. 

 Many of the merchants who take these commission 

 boxes also carry small lots of staple seeds in bags to sell 

 in bulk and are therefore seed merchants in a small 

 way. They usually rely for then* base of supply on the 

 seed-houses who consign them the box. 



Dealers in garden seeds are also large dealers in flow- 

 ering bulbs, such as hyacinths, tulips, narcissi, crocus, 

 and the like. These are chiefly imported from Holland, 

 south of France, Italy, and Japan. 



The trade is divided into the main branches of gar- 

 den and flower seeds and bulbs, and agricultural seeds. 

 The latter is practically a business by itself, devoted to 

 such seeds as blue-^grass, timothy, clover, red-top and 

 alfalfa, some of which are exported or imported as the 

 exigencies of the season's product demand. 



Flower seeds are subjected to no import duties, while 

 on garden seeds there is a tariff figured on a specific 

 basis. It is a moot point whether this tariff at the pres- 

 ent time operates to the advantage of the trade, the 

 principal seedsmen being generally of the opinion that 

 it tends to stimulate over-production.in this country. 



The main business of the country is in the hands of 

 about 150 firms, but practically every groceryman in 

 country towns and villages carries a stock during the 

 spring season. These men, however, deal as a rule with 

 the larger houses, and constitute the principal class of 

 middlemen for retail trade. 



The seed-growing and merchandizing industry is 

 represented by the American Seed Trade Association. 

 J. M. THORBURN & Co. 

 C. C. MORSE & Co. 



SEEMANNIA (named for Berthold Seemann, 

 1825-1871). Gesneriocex. Strigose- pubescent peren- 

 nial herbs with rhizomes, suitable for the warmhouse: 

 sts. stout, simple: Ivs. verticillate, in 3's or 4's, very 

 short-petioled, frequently canescent below; the upper 

 ones reduced to bracts: pedicels solitary in the axils: 

 fls. red-purple; calyx-tube turbinate, adnate, lobes 5, 

 narrow; corolla-tube bent downward, broadly and 

 obliquely subcampanulate, the limb with very short 

 erect-spreading lobes; disk annular, undulate and not 

 divided; ovary almost entirely inferior: caps, nearly 

 inferior. Two species, S. Amer. S. silvdtica, Hanst. 

 (S. ternifolia, Regel). Plant 3-4 ft. high: lys. 3-4 in a 

 whorl, very shortly petioled: fls. solitary, bright scarlet; 

 calyx with 5 narrow lobes; corolla short-gibbous at base. 

 Winter. Peru. Gt. 4, p. 182. 



SELAGINELLA (diminutive of Latin Selago, old 

 name of a club moss) . Sdaginellaceae. CLUB Moss. A 

 large group of mostly tropical plants with small scale- 

 like leaves and of diverse habit, ranging from minute 

 prostrate annuals to erect or even climbing perennials. 



