136 



QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Latitude 

 Affecting 

 Garden 

 Seeds. 



Pollination of 844. Q. How do Water plants growing under water eflfect the pollina 

 Water Plants tjon of their flowers ? 



A. Sometimes the male flowers are borne on short stems, and when 

 perfected detach themselves and rise to the surface, where they meet the 

 female flowers. At other times they are borne on long stems rising to 

 the surface. The female flowers are always borne on long stems or 

 peduncles reaching to the surface of the water where the pollination only 

 takes place. As a rule water plants will only grow where the flower 

 stems can reach the surface. 



845. Q. What latitude or climate is best suited for the production of 

 garden seeds 



A. It is well-known that garden peas do best under the atmospheric 

 influence of the Great Lakes, as along the Canadian shores of Lakes 

 Ontario and Erie, and along the American shores of the same lakes, or 

 within the influence of lake air. Sugar corn, on the other hand, grown in 

 New England has long been proverbial for its high sugary qualities and 

 retention of type, qualities which it loses in the West, the sugar corn grown 

 there becoming thicker and altogether larger and more mealy in the 

 grain, instead of retaining its qualities of lightness, and corneous, and 

 oily character. Vegetables for the production of small seeds develop best 

 in the sections indicated by New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, as 

 there the full flavor of the vegetable is retained, and outward appearances 

 of the seed stock remain unchanged, which is not the case when the same 

 vegetables are grown on the richer soils of the West. The West produces 

 very showy mammoth vegetables, but Eastern seeds grown on slower 

 soils are more true in their disposition. The district referred to, styled by 

 the Census Bureau the "Pennsylvania District," has a better climate for 

 the full perfection and full retention of typical qualities of shape, size, 

 color, flavor, as its climate is very favorable to insuring perfect pollina- 

 tion, consequently a higher vitality in the seeds than from districts 

 farther North, South, or West. 



846. Q. Is there a seed adulteration law in the United States, as in 

 England? 



A. No ; but there should be to prevent like frauds as held in check — 

 only in partial check, however — by the English law which was passed 

 about 1870, and which laid heavy penalties for adulteration with dead 

 seeds. Before that date it was a common practice in England when seeds 

 fell in vitality to a percentage too low to sell, to roast them in kilns to de- 

 stroy all remaining vitality. Kilns for such purposes were established in 

 various parts of England, and they did a thriving business. Any kind of 

 turnip, cabbage, radish, beet, or other seed of no value, because of 

 low vitality, could be killed and mixed with some high-priced variety of 

 the same family, thus lowering the cost of the whole. In the case of 

 clover, quartz rock was ground into sand, graded to size, colored like 

 clover, and used as an adulterant of clover. While the English law pro- 

 hibits the sales of adulterated seed in England, there is no law to prevent 

 adulterated seed being sent to America. 



Adulteration 

 of Seeds. 



