THE aARDElS". 



Sa-ring Seed»._In saving seeds oiily the best specimens of each kind 

 should be saved, and all inferior ones rejected; this is easy enough with such 

 plants as squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, etc., care being used t« 

 save only the earUest, fairest, and most perfect specimens. The seed should 

 be allowed to ripen thoroughly before taking it from the fruit, which will re- 

 quire some weeks with squashes, after gathering from the vine; tomatoes 

 are placed in the sun for a few days, and melon-seeds may be taken directly 

 when the melon is fit to eat; seeds of this nature having a fleshy pulp are 

 usually cleaned by allowing them to ferment in water for a day or two, when 

 the pulp wiU easily wash off, after which the seed is spread upon a sheet in 

 the sunshine to dry. Seeds of vines keep longer il' not allowed to freeze; 

 they will preserve their Aritality five or sis years if kept in a warm, dry place. 

 A closet near a chimney is a good place, and, since naice and rata are fond of 

 such tidbits as melon-seeds, it will be ad\'i8able to lock them up in a tin 

 chest or other rat-proof arrangement. When sa\-ing seeds of beets, cabbage, 

 turnip, etc., those who are most particular reject all but the seed grown on 

 the leading stem. Beet-seed is cleaned by threshing, sifting, and picking 

 over to get out the sticks; it varies much in size, and should be separated 

 by a sieve, in order to have it run evenly through the seed drill, for it is the 

 most troublesoE-e of all seed to sow evenly. Perhaps some inventor will 

 discover a method of shelling out best seeds, so that they can be sown evenly; 

 if this could be done, one of the chief items of labor in raising beets would 

 be greatly lightened, and a saving of more than half the seed would be 

 effected also; for the beet-seed as now sown is a pod containing two to five 

 seeds each, and is so rough and uneven in shape as to give much trouble to 

 sow it evenly with a drill; iu fact, to insure a good stand, very heavy seed- 

 ing and laborious thinning are essential. If the pod could be crushed ana 

 the seed shelled out, it could then bo drilled in as evenly as any other seed. 

 Seeds of all kinds keep best in a dry, even temperature. When to be kept 

 in large lots, they may be put in bags and hung from the ceiling of the room, 

 to keep them from the mice. Most seeds are good from two to five years, if 

 carefully kept; onion-seed, however, is very inferior after the first year, and 

 worthless after the second. When old seed is to be used, it should be previ- 

 ously tested by sowing a counted lot in a hot-bed or other suitable place, 

 and counting the number of plants that come up, and noting the vigoi- of the 

 plants; the plants from old seed are usually less \'igorou3 than from fresh 

 seed, and sometimes are so weak as to be worthless. 



Tlie Best Garden A'egetables. — The following is an extract from an 

 essay on "Market Gardening," read before the American Nurserymen's 

 Association, at Dayton, O.: Within the past dozen years many important au- 

 vances have been made in earliness and in quality of vegetables. Among 

 beets we have the Egj^jtian, which matures at least five days ahead of any 

 oiher variety, except the Old Bassano, which was too light in color to suit; 

 ia cabbages, the Early Summer; and in cauliflower, the Snowball; in celery, 



