GROWING FLOWER SEED IN THE SANTA CLARA VALLEY. 95 



that found favor in spite of opposition. Some, probably many, still 

 criticize California-grown pansy seed, and many California people pre- 

 fer and use exclusively imported seed. I am quite sure, however, that 

 it is particular stocks that are in question, and that the criticism 

 should not hold good against pansy seed of improved types properly 

 grown. . My own experience proves them to be just as good as imported 

 stocks, but I find it is an item that requires more than usual attention, 

 and more care than many of us can afford to give it, for it is in all 

 respects an unprofitable crop with us. 



As in many flowers, the finest and largest produce very little seed, 

 especially some varieties, while the smallest and least attractive vari- 

 eties will seed fairly well. 



If one had a bed of pansies in his garden and gathered most of the 

 finest blossoms during the whole of spring, and then in summer saved 

 the seed that had matured, I doubt if the product of his seed the next 

 season would be good for. anything. It certainly would not do for a 

 seed-grower, for it is the reverse of this proceeding that the seed-grower 

 follows. Such plants as would naturally seed well are very apt to be 

 the ones that would be pulled up, and the finest blossoms instead of 

 being gathered for pleasure, would be allowed to seed if they would, 

 and a certain proportion of them would produce a little seed. 



It is the constant and careful selection of the finest, performed by 

 an intelligent system, that will make good flower strains, wherever 

 flowers can be grown, and there is no doubt about the merit of California 

 flower seeds when they are so produced. 



In the first place, our climate in California is rather superior to that 

 of any other seed-growing section, especially so in Santa Clara Valley. 

 Cool nights and warm days, tempered in the afternoon by constant sea 

 breezes, are ideal conditions for summer blossoms. Then the long, dry 

 summers are just the thing for harvest, and the seed develops and 

 matures to almost a perfect degree so far as natural conditions are con- 

 cerned. 



We have a variety of soils, too, that affords us abundant choice to 

 meet the needs of all sorts of plants, and so far as nature can help us, 

 we are endowed in the Santa Clara Valley with all the gifts that would 

 make us the seed-producing country for the world's supply of flower 

 seed. 



We are not apt to become such, however, since competition with the 

 foreign growers is too keen, and there is absolutely no profit for us in 

 growing the majority of the long list of flowers offered by the foreign 

 seed-growers. 



We are greatly handicapped, too, in our competition by the great 

 want of sufficient intelligent but cheap labor, as well as by want of a 

 tariff, as flower seeds are admitted free of duty. 



