No. 4.] GARDEN SEEDS. 49 



dividuals of exactly the right type to take the place of the 

 degenerated ones. It is evident that it is impractical to pro- 

 duce all of the immense amount of seed required for use in 

 this way; but I do know that it is quite possible and practi- 

 cal to so produce all the stock seed from which the seed actu- 

 ally used by the gardener is produced, and that efforts in 

 this direction will give results of incomparably greater prac- 

 tical value to actual vegetable growers than the effort to pro- 

 duce entirely new and distinct variations. There is, I be- 

 lieve, no probability of even a Burbank being able to furnish 

 us, whether it be by development or " creation," with a va- 

 riety of lettuce which shall be of greater practical value than 

 some of those which have been developed during the more 

 than two thousand years that the plant has been grown in 

 gardens; but I think it is possible to produce a stock of any 

 of the distinct types now in existence which, because of 

 greater unity of type, shall be greatly superior in practical 

 usefulness and can be used with greater satisfaction and 

 profit than any new type which is likely to be developed. 

 Indeed, I believe your townsman, W. W. Rawson the vege- 

 table grower does produce for use in his -own gardens just 

 such stocks, though I do not know whether W. W. Rawson 

 the seedsman sells them or not; but, if not, it isn't because 

 he fails to appreciate their value, and that no matter what 

 they cost it is more profitable to use such strains of well- 

 tested types than more carelessly grown and cheaper stocks 

 or to experiment with new sorts. We believe it is entirely 

 practical to produce such superior strains of all of our gar- 

 den vegetables, and that their more general production and 

 use would increase the profits and satisfaction of both the 

 seed growers and the seed users. 



I know of a case where the seeds of 10 watermelons of 

 identical and very superior character were saved separately, 

 and samples from each lot were planted, and the one in which 

 the fruit was most uniformly of the distinct type was selected 

 and planted in an isolated block, and produced sufficient seed 

 to plant a field of 20 acres. This was without exception the 

 finest field of melons I ever saw. At the time when the fruit 

 was nearly ripe, and not a melon had been taken from it, I 



