PLANT IMPROVEMENT, GOOD SEED 27 



Buy the Best. It seldom pays to buy cheap seeds. The 

 age, size, weight, purity, and vitality should be determined 

 when buying. Protect seeds from mice, insects, and moisture. 



Cheap seeds are sometimes mixed with better seeds if 

 the two kinds look much alike. Old seeds which have nearly 

 lost their life are sometimes made fresh looking by using 

 fumes of sulfur. These are then mixed with good seeds 

 and sold. Such mixtures are called adulterations. 



FIG. 12. A convenient home apparatus for testing seeds. The seeds are germi- 

 nated between wet cloths or blotters. The plates help to hold the moisture 

 (Agricultural Education.) 



Immature seeds are those not fully ripened; such seed 

 cannot sprout well. To sprout under ordinary field con- 

 ditions, the seed must be fully matured. 



SECTION ON WEEDS 



The Weed Nuisance. One of the greatest hindrances 

 to good farming is the presence of weeds in the fields. Weed 

 seed is in. the soil, in the grain, grass seed, and nearly all 

 farm seeds (Figs. 13a and 6). There are thirty or more un- 

 desirable weeds to be found in clover seed and alfalfa seed. 

 The grass seed is too often full of bad weed seed. There 

 is no place on the farm where weeds are a greater enemy 

 to our success than in the grass fields. It is harder to get 

 rid of them there than from the fields where we are doing 

 some tilling. But most of the weeds found in the pastures 

 and hay-fields have been sown there or near there by some 

 farmer, at some time in the past. Some weed seeds are 

 sown from fence rows by the wind. 



