The Agricultural Gazette of India contains a 

 most valuable article on " Seed and Seed-sowing/' 

 which is quoted here entire : 



" When will our cultivators learn that bad seed never 

 produces good crops ? The cost of seed, even of a really 

 good quality, is one of the least expensive items in the 

 charges incurred for raising a crop, and yet, small as the 

 cost is, there are few cultivators that do not grudge the 

 expense. They will sow any seed possessing the ordinary 

 characteristics of the seed of the variety of crop they wish 

 to produce, provided that they have it already of their own 

 producing, or can buy it at a low rate. Thus, to save half 

 a rupee, or a rupee at the most, per acre, they will risk 

 the value of their labour on cultivation, the loss of the 

 crop, &c. The difference in the return, obtained from a 

 crop produced by good seed and from a crop produced by 

 bad seed, may be 25 per cent, in favor of the former, say 

 Us. 5 per acre certainly a large return for the extra 

 rupee spent in procuring the good seed. But this is not 

 all ; for the sickly crop produced by inferior seed, or by 

 old seed, is always more liable to be injured by blight, by 

 weather, and by insects, than a healthy crop, the produce 

 of well-grown, well-developed seed. By good seed wq 

 mean not only that the seed must be large and well-formed, 

 true to its kind, regular in colour, fresh, and free from all 

 mustiness, &c. , but that it must have been produced under 

 favorable conditions, that is, must not have been grown 

 year after year on the same land, or on land of the 

 description and quality of that on which it is intended to 

 be sown, and must, when tested, yield at least 75 per cent, 

 of vital grains. Our cultivators do not fully appreciate 

 the benefits that arise from a change of seed. Instead of, 



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