METHODS OF SEED HANDLING 311 



The careful grower devotes a great deal of time to roguing his 

 crops. In spite of the greatest care in selection there will always 

 be a few off plants, and these must come out to keep the stock pure. 



One Use of Machinery. Improved cleaning machinery has 

 proved an important factor in the production of a bright, fresh- 

 looking sample of seed, and has improved the vitality test by allow- 

 ing a thorough separation of everything spurious from the good 

 seed. Hand mills are employed to some extent for small lots, but 

 the main cleaning is done with large Clipper Mills, operated by 

 gasoline engines, and sometimes the electric motor is used. This 

 gives a steadier power and a much larger capacity. It was not un- 

 til a few years ago that onion seed could be successfully threshed 

 and separated by one and the same mill. After years of experi- 

 menting and great expense, one was built that could successfully 

 do this, and now onion seed is threshed and cleaned by large mills 

 run with steam engines. It is, however, still necessary to sink the 

 seed in water to get it perfectly clean. 



Hand Labor. Nothing has been invented for threshing lettuce, 

 cabbage, parsnip, parsley, etc., which is any improvement on the old 

 hand flail, and gangs of men are employed in threshing these crops. 

 The diversity of the crops and the innumerable variety would make 

 it naturally unprofitable to attempt to employ machinery in the field 

 for these kinds of seed. 



The seed grower must depend upon a great deal of hand work. 

 Everything must be harvested by hand; every onion head must be 

 cut by hand ; every stalk of lettuce and carrot must be dried, turned, 

 threshed, cleaned and recleaned. Carrot seed must not only be 

 flailed to thresh it, but it must also be run through a rubbing ma- 

 chine to break the beards off and then cleaned in-doors. 



All the planting and cultivating must be done very carefully, 

 and much of it is hand work. Every onion bulb must be set right 

 side up in the row then carefully covered. Celery plants are twice 

 transplanted before being finally set out in the field. Carrots and 

 all roots must be selected and taken out to be transplanted all 

 which are defective in shape and color being thrown out. 



The careful seed grower always makes careful selections of 

 everything he has growing, which he plants separately for his own 

 stock seed. There will always be some roots or plants that are 

 rather better in being nearer the true type and color than the others, 



