58 VEGETABLE GARDENING. 



for a number of years cabbage seed was grown by cutting off 

 the heads and planting out the stumps only, until the stems 

 became nearly two feet long and the heads not much bigger 

 than twice the size of a man's fist. 



The practice of miring the seed from plants remaining in the 

 garden after the best specimens have been gathered for home use, as 

 often happens, is a very poor one. Under such treatment there 

 is a very general tendency for the stock to degenerate. Where 

 seed is to be saved in a mixed garden, a few hills of plants 

 should be allowed to go to seed for this special purpose, with- 

 out being picked at all. It is very important to save seed 

 from well ripened fruits. Very immature seeds will often 

 grow, but they give a w r eak though, perhaps, very early 

 maturing plant and are very liable to disease. According 

 to Prof. Arthur, it is not the slightly unripe seeds that give a 

 noticeable increase inearliness, but very unripe seeds gathered 

 from fruit (tomatoes ) scarcely of full size and still very green. 

 Such seeds weigh scarcely more than two-thirds as much as 

 those fully ripe: they grow readily but lack constitutional 

 vigor. Professor E. S. Goff has made a great number of experi- 

 ments along this line and remarks that the increase in earli- 

 ness in tomatoes following the use of very immature seeds, "is 

 accompanied by a marked decrease in the vigor of the plant 

 and in the size, firmness and keeping quality of the fruit. ,r 



A few years of careful observation and experience in fol- 

 lowing out these principles in the breeding of plants, with a 

 special object in view, w r ill convince the most skeptical of the 

 wonderful power which man possesses to adapt plants to 

 his needs. 



Crossing and Self-pollination of Plants.— The flowers of plants 

 are said to be either self-pollenized or crossed. By self-pol- 

 lination is meant the fertilization of the female organ (pistil) 

 by the male element ( pollen ) of the same flower or. in some 

 cases of the same plant but different flowers as in corn and 

 squashes, which have two kinds of flowers. By crossing, or 

 cross-pollination, is meant the union of different plants in the 

 seed. The crossing of different varieties generally gives in- 

 creased vigor in the progeny, but its effect is variable and 

 may result in the loss as well as the increase of other desir- 

 able qualities. Most of our cultivated plants are crossed by 



