CHAPTER IV 

 THE SEED SUPPLY 



One of the primary requisites to success in vegetable growing 

 is the use of good seed. There are several sources from which 

 seed may be procured. The most usual source of the seed supply 

 for planting the home garden is the corner grocery store. Many 

 people neglect to purchase their garden seeds until the day they 

 need them for planting. For such people the corner grocery is a 

 great accommodation. There are many gardens which would 

 never have been planted except for this ever-present source of 

 seed supply. However, the corner grocery is by no means the 



Fig. 5. — Result of planiiug unreliable seed: Four types of tomatoes from the same packet. 



best place to buy seeds. Usually the assortment of varieties is 

 small, and those which are offered are the more common sorts. 

 A gardener with a discriminating taste for high quality varieties 

 usually cannot secure the seeds he wants at a grocery store. A 

 much surer way of securing the varieties desired is to order the 

 seeds by mail from the catalogue of some reputable seedsman 

 who makes a feature of furnishing seeds of high quality. 



Commercial vegetable growers who desire large quantities of 

 seed of some particular strain, often purchase their supplies 

 directly from a seed grower who makes a specialty of producing 

 that particular kind of seed. Such seed growers are usually located 

 in regions especially adapted to the production of the seed in 

 question. 

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