SEED GROWING 2^ 



washing has to be repeated three or four times. It is 

 then spread on boards or trays to dr}^ in the sun 

 and wind. After the first day it should be removed 

 from the sun, but exposed to the air in a dry loft, 

 spread thin for ten days or more. When thoroughly 

 dried the seed is stored in linen or paper bags until 

 needed. 



When cheapness of the seed is the main considera- 

 tion such promiscuous harvesting may be permissible, 

 but when only the best is desired careful selection and 

 preparation becomes necessary. Even if the parent 

 plants are of choice types, not all the seeds from them 

 are equally good. The seed, for instance, which has 

 been gathered from a stool which has flowered side by 

 side with an inferior kind, and at the same time, may 

 be worthless, because it has been fertilized badly. 

 Then the last heads generally yield nothing but doubt- 

 ful seed which seldom reproduces the proper type. The 

 seeds which grow at the end of the shoots also, as well 

 as those produced by the upper and lower extremities 

 of the stem, have the same defedt. 



In order to insure the produdtion of the ver>^ best 

 asparagus seed a sufficient number of pistillate or seed- 

 bearing plants, which produce the strongest and best 

 spears, should be seledled and marked so that they may 

 be distinguished the following spring when the shoots 

 appear. These clumps should be close together and 

 near some staminate or male plants which have to be 

 marked likewise, as without their presence fertile seed 

 can not be produced. The number of the male to the 

 female plants should be about one to four or five. The 

 following spring all the sprouts of the selecfled male 



