QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 151 



897. Q. Do the Landreths grow garden seeds on more than one farm? i-andreth 

 A. The Landreths court investigation— they have nothing to hide. ^'arms. 



No seed merchants in America cultivate upon their own lands, quarter as 

 many acres annually as they do, in cabbage, turnip, Summer radish, 

 "Winter radish, beets, egg plants, kale, parsnip, pepper, spinach, tomato, 

 onion sets, and seeds of many other families of vegetables. 

 The Landreth seed farms owned in fee simple by the firm are : 



Bloomsdale . . . 500 acres. Reedland . . . 146 acres. 



Monaskon . . . 222 acres. Granville . . . 473 acres. 



And rented from the estate of David Landreth : 



Georges . . 78 acres. Hunton's . . 185 acres. Bellemont . . 200 acres. 



On these particulaf farms, in Summer, are sometimes employed a force 

 of two hundred hands, and in harvest time the force is increased to four 

 hundred and fifty hands, 



898. Q. What is meant by Pedigree Seeds? Pedig^ree 

 A. Strong believers in heredity endeavor to grow from seed of fixed Seeds. 



habit. Intensely careful selections of many years have established types 

 "which are almost fixed, and are called " Pedigree Seeds." 



Heredity is most fixed when plants are cultivated upon the soil and 

 under the climatic surroundings of their place of origin, while on the 

 other hand, very radical departures are made when the same plants are 

 grown under changed conditions of soil and climate. This is noticed in 

 the enlarged and coarse development of cabbage grown in Oregon or 

 California from Pennsylvania seed, or in the deterioration of the edible 

 qualities of watermelons grown in the South from New Jersey seed. Any 

 Eastern seed taken to the Pacific slope will, in a few years, so depart from 

 its original type as to be hardly recognizable under its original name. 

 The most marked effect of soil and climate is on some of the vegetables of 

 Japan, many of which are products of Landreths' seed sent to Japan by the 

 United States Patent Office on the occasion of the expedition of Commo- 

 dore Perry to Japan in 1847. Those seeds were the first of the kind ever 

 introduced into that empire. We have since received and tested many 

 Japanese seeds of vegetables bearing what we have taken to be a trace 

 of the original American parentage. 



As respects heredity and the art of crossing two or more varieties whose 

 superior qualities, if united, would be desirable, much has been accom- 

 plished, and in the future various astonishing results will, no doubt, be 

 developed, for the number of hybridizers, all working out different lines, 

 will certainly produce a multitude of interesting results. While the 

 greater part, however, of so-called new sorts are the results of chance 

 admixture in the field, the seed grower is now ceasing to be a mere plodder- 

 on in the steps of his ancestors, but is entering into his work physiologi- 

 cally, if not scientifically, and the work of the hybridizer is now so 

 multiplying varieties and subvarieties as to confound the unintelligent 

 seed planter. While the meritorious alone will stand the test and be per- 



