80 MARKET GARDENING. 



matter of any seeds we send out, and we will not be, in 

 any way, responsible for the crop. If the purchaser does 

 not accept the goods on these terms they are at once to 

 be returned." 



No seedsman with any security to his property rights 

 could conduct a business where he would be subject to 

 suits at law by every merchant and gardener who might 

 be inclined to lodge at his door the material results of 

 crops. Every observing worker in the garden can recall 

 most contradictory experience in the sprouting and grow- 

 ing of crops. For instance, in April, 1890, the writer 

 drilled, on Bloomsdale Farm, many acres of bush beans of 

 various sorts, and in the trial grounds planted samples of 

 these and many other lots. These field crops and the 

 trial ground plantings were repeated in May. The 

 spring temperature was cold and the earth kept con- 

 stantly cold and damp by frequent rains ; the results 

 were so contradictory as to be beyond explanation. For 

 example, a special variety, doing well in the field, did 

 badly in the trial ground; or the same variety, doing 

 well in trial grounds, did badly in the field. In every 

 case the highest results were accepted as indicative of the 

 percentage of vitality, though the same lot of beans may 

 have exhibited the wide range of from twenty-five to 

 ninety-five per cent of germination. 



The same irregular results are observable, not only 

 in germination, but in subsequent growth, and all the 

 way to maturity of form, size and quality of vegetable, 

 fruit or flower from seed out of the same bag, all conse- 

 quent upon natural or artificial condition of soil, tempo- 

 rary influence of temperature by day, and quite as often 

 by night ; sunlight, rainfall, favorable influence to urge 

 into rapid growth, or unfavorable conditions to check 

 progress often occurring at that period of the plant's 

 development, determining its merit for excellence, medi- 

 ocrity or inferiority. 



