CHAPTER 1 8 

 AGRICULTURAL SEEDS, SEED SELECTION AND TESTING 



General Considerations. As the success of agricultural and horti- 

 cultural operations, next to the preparation of the soil and a propitious 

 climate, depends upon the character of the seeds which are sown, it is 

 obvious, that for the seeding of the crop, the best seed is not good enough. 

 With the seed sown to produce a given crop, if great care is not exercised 

 in the selection of the seed, may go along weed seeds, the eggs of destruc- 

 tive insects and the spores of destructive fungi. Hence, the farmer 

 must be constantly on the alert to see that his seed is pure and without 

 these objectionable concomitants. If the farmer does not select and test 

 the seeds himself, he must delegate that work to another person, who as a 

 trained botanist, is connected with some central seed control station 

 maintained by a Cooperative Farmers' Association, or by the Agricultural 

 Experiment Station maintained by the state, or the national government. 

 The seeds, which are purchased for use, will have been passed upon by the 

 specialists before they are planted by the farmers. This has given rise to 

 pure seed acts by a number of the states, by the national government, 

 and by the Canadian government looking to the control of the seeds which 

 are purchased for use in the raising of the crops upon which the prosperity 

 of the states depends. 



History. The idea of controlling the quality of seeds offered for sale 

 in the market by scientific methods was put into operation at the first 

 institution for testing commercial seeds established at Tharandt, Germany, 

 in 1870 by Dr. Friedrich Nobbe, who published in 1876 a compendious 

 treatise "Handbuch der Samenkunde" later to be followed in 1885 with 

 "Landwirthschaftliche Samenkunde" by Dr. C. D. Harz, a work of 

 1362 pages, published in two volumes. Other European stations were 

 established and in 1877 the Connecticut Station began the testing of seeds. 

 Omitting a consideration of the laws for seed control upon the statute 

 books of the different states, reference to the more important available 

 pamphlets on such laws will be found in the bibliography for this chapter, 

 and we are free to proceed with a discussion of practical seed testing. 



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