88 FARM CROPS 



or section that should not have its tens and hun- 

 dreds of plant breeders, young men and old men, 

 at work improving the plants of the garden and 

 farm by means of selection. It not only is a most 

 pleasant kind of work in which to engage, but it 

 is profitable, not only through increasing the crops 

 of the farm but because improved seed is in demand 

 just as improved blood is always at a premium in 

 the live stock world. 



FANNING MILLS FOR GOOD SEED 



Farmers lose millions a year through neglecting 

 to properly clean and grade the seed and grain 

 planted. This loss gets larger as land values in- 

 crease. We shall never have any more land, and 

 the value of this farm land is going up each year. 

 So every farmer is confronted by the absolute neces- 

 sity of getting more and more in the way of crops 

 from each acre. Nothing so easy will do more in 

 this direction than greater care in getting good 

 seed. Even if you keep up the fertility, follow 

 thorough tillage and cultivate assiduously, what 

 will these avail if the seed is poor or if it contains 

 weeds, imperfect grains or other substances not 

 wanted in the planting? 



Really, we should give back to the land the best 

 that it gives. Hence the plump seed, heavy with 

 vitality, only should be used, and the shriveled 

 seed and the weed seed should be discarded. In- 

 deed, to do otherwise is to sustain needless loss. 

 Consider your hay crop. You sow the grass seed 

 mixed with weeds. You get weedy hay and feed 

 most of it, if not all of it, to your own stock. The 

 weed seed goes through the animal and remains 



