72 AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



ties or characteristics that he seldom or never omits it as an 

 item in his estimate of the value of any given variety. Thus, 

 if a carrot be of a light or lemon color, he infers that it lacks 

 richness of flavor ; if a beet be streaked with white, he con- 

 cludes that, however valuable it may be for early use, on ac- 

 count of its free growth, it will prove strong, or, at best, want- 

 ing in sweetness when kept for winter use ; and in respect to 

 turnips, he is. familiar with the fact that, other things being 

 equal, the yellow varieties are uniformly richer and sweeter 

 than the white. 



DETERIORATION. 



There is an ever-recurring tendency in improved seeding 

 vegetables backward to their primitive condition as mere self- 

 reproducers ; and here, as in the matter of vegetable forms, the 

 constant effort of the cultivator is required to counteract this 

 tendency, with this difference, however, in the mere business 

 view of it, that while it is almost always the interest of the 

 cultivator to improve vegetable forms to the utmost, the dimin- 

 ished average product of seed from such improved varieties con- 

 stitutes a standing and strong temptation to the mere seed- 

 raiser to permit this natural deterioration to occur, quantity in 

 the yield being generally the measure of his business profits. 



This retrograde tendency may be suddenly stimulated and 

 strengthened by various causes in the different kinds of vegeta- 

 bles. In peas, beans, and the various running vines, it often 

 becomes apparent in a single season, when the seed is saved 

 from the later portions of the crop, the earlier product having 

 been eaten while comparatively rare, or sold before the market 

 became glutted. Such seeds produce what may properly be 

 termed new and debased varieties, " early peas" that are late 

 and unprolific, or " six-week beans" that in sixteen weeks may 

 possibly ripen a scattering and scanty crop. 



A similar effect, though not always equal in degree, is pro- 

 duced when plants which, being properly biennial, ought to 

 " bottom," as the turnip, or " head," as the cabbage, are sown 

 at unsuitable seasons, and in consequence are driven up to seed 

 without these important preliminary processes. Thus very 



