60 OF TR07AGATIOX. SECT. V. 



procure the best, and no temptation suffered to pre- 

 vail for the use of an inferior kind, or of one only 

 suspected of being so, if it can be helped ; for to 

 cultivate a soil, and use a wrong or defective seed 

 knowingly, is folly indeed ! Large seeds may have 

 the doubtful picked out. 



The largest seed of the kind, plump and sound, 

 is to be chosen, being well ripened and kept from 

 injuries of weather and insects : for, as the largest 

 animals produce the most profitable stock, so it is 

 in vegetables ; which directs the gardener always to 

 save seed only from the forwardest and handsomest 

 uninjured plants. As in animals the young may be 

 stunted by bad management, and defective food, so 

 in vegetables, the seed being good will not be alone 

 sufficient, if the soil and culture be not right. 



Commonly speaking new seed is to be preferred to 

 old, as growing the more luxuriantly, and coming up 

 the surer and quicker. This circumstance induces 

 some private persons to save their own seed that 

 they may not be deceived in buying old for new seed ; 

 a trick of trade, it is to be hoped, not practised by 

 every seedsman : Yet a little mixture of old seed is 

 sometimes proper, because if the new be cut off, the 

 old may be saved, by being a day or two later in 

 coming up. 



If old seed is knowingly sown, some allowance in 

 point of time must be made. Peas and beans of 

 two years old, are by some preferred to new, as not 

 running so much to straw. See cucumbers and me- 

 lons, section 14. 



As to the age of seeds, at which they may be 

 sown and germinate, it is uncertain, and depends 

 very much how they are preserved. Seeds kept 

 from the air and moisture by being buried deep in 

 the ground will continue a great many years without 

 corruption. Peas and beans will germinate very 



