90 GARDENING FOR PEOFIT. 



cure an ounce from him, and as no one cared to risk the 

 seed stores in those days for Wakefield Cabbage seed, he 

 had the whole field to himself. He planted nearly ten 

 acres with this variety, which coming in some eight or 

 ten days earlier than anything else, he made a little for- 

 tune by his being able to have a monopoly of the seed. 

 That is now over thirty years ago, but I have never 

 known a Jersey gardener to be out of Wakefield Cabbage 

 seed since, and not know where to get it. Before we 

 adopted the system of proving seeds in our Trial Grounds, 

 we often suffered severe losses. I remember once getting 

 from one of my neighbors a market gardener a pound 

 of what he honestly thought was Silesia Lettuce, but 

 which proved to be Curled India. I used it for planting 

 in my forcing-frames, which resulted in nearly an entire 

 loss of the crop. The India Lettuce is a summer variety, 

 maturing in the hottest weather, and consequently almost 

 useless for forcing. This blunder entailed on me a loss 

 of over a thousand dollars. A year or two ago, we im- 

 ported from England 500 pounds of one of the leading 

 kinds of Celery, from a source that in twenty years had 

 always proved to be correct. Our Trial Ground test 

 showed it to be worthless, as it was lank growing and 

 hollow stemmed ; had we not put it through the crucial 

 test of our Trial Grounds, we would have spread serious 

 disaster among hundreds of our market garden cus- 

 tomers. 



There is but little new to say of the manner of raising 

 seeds ; the importance of selecting the purest specimens 

 of each variety, and of keeping plants that are of the 

 same families apart as far distant as the limits of the 

 ground will admit, is now well understood. It is not 

 practicable, however, to raise all the seeds wanted in our 

 vegetable gardens in our climate, and consequently we 

 have to rely on importation for seeds of Broccoli, Cauli- 

 flower, some varieties of Cabbage, Radishes, Peas, etc. 



