18 



The Florists^ Review 



JuM 3«. 1922 



rolled and fanned, then washed or sunk 

 in water, then dried and milled once, 

 after which they are sent to the grower, 

 who finishes the work of cleaning. 



These river crops are usually grown 

 on small areas by gardeners or farmers 

 who work at fixed prices for certain 

 work. For instance, in the case of 

 growing onion seed, the grower supplies 

 the onion bulbs, and in the case of 

 roots, the farmers may or may not grow 

 these for the grower, but the price is 

 determined by the work he performs. 

 All sheets, sacks, etc., are supplied or 

 loaned by the grower, and he is usually 

 called upon to supply moiiey for crop 

 advances. The growers must do all the 

 superintending of the work and must 

 have their, representatives on the job 

 the year around. 



Seed Grower's Place. 



The California seed grower used to be 

 one who either owned or leased his own 

 farm, owned all his stock and equip- 

 ment, and operated his farm with day 

 labor. Much of this has now been 

 changed, and while he still owns or 

 leases a large part of his land and works 

 it himself, he places more or less of his 

 acreage with various farmers who grow 

 for him. This is now done both along 

 the coast and in the delta district. 

 Many acres of peas, beans and vine 

 seeds are now grown, but none of these 

 crops, so far as I know, is grown by 

 the grower himself. There is a demand 

 now for two distinctive titles, one the 

 seed grower, who gets the seed for the 

 seedsman or dealer, and the other the 

 farmer, grower or producer, who plants 

 a small acreage for the seed grower. 

 To my mind, we should designate them 

 hereafter as seed grower and farmer 

 grower. 



One unfamiliar with the work of pro- 

 ducing seed crops might think it an 

 easy matter to get direct to the farmer 

 grower and eliminate the margin that 

 seems to exist between him and the 

 seed grower. It would only be because 

 lie was unfamiliar, however, with the 

 organization and system required to 

 breed stock seeds, to secure intelligent 

 farmer growers, to arrange biennial 

 crops aiKl to get the ero])s properly 

 l)lanted, and he would doubtless under- 

 estimate the cost of equipment that 

 must be loaned the farmer and the cash 

 advances that so frequently must be 



made. 



Crops of Small Seeds. 



Such crops as lettuce, radish, parsley, 

 onion, sweet peas, culinary peas and 

 seed beans are grown in the coast val- 

 leys. The first-mentioned small seeds 

 are produced by the seed growers, who 

 to a large extent are farmers tliemselves 

 and operate their own si'ed farms and 

 on rather a large scale. 



As the weather is cooler and fogs and 

 heavv dews are frequent, harvesting is 

 conducted on a somewhat different plan 

 than in the river or delta district. Such 

 crops as lettuce, onion and sweet peas 

 are dried on sheets on account of their 

 shelling so easily, but radish, parsley 

 and other crops are laid in windrows in 

 the field and hauled to the threshing 

 machines in cloth-lined wagons. Onion, 

 radish and sweet peas require specially 

 constructed threshers, but lettuce is best 

 threshed by simply rolling with a big 

 roller drawn by horses. River crops, 

 which include carrot, celery, parsnip, 

 beet, spinach and onion, are all rolled 

 out; it does not pay to thresh these 



crops in that section with machines, 

 since the farmer growers usually plant 

 only small acreages for the seed grow- 

 ers and to move machines from one 

 island to another on steamers or barges 

 requires much time, trouble and ex- 

 pense. 



Retaining Strains. 



It is hardly necessary to explain to an 

 assembly of seedsmen that seed growing 

 is a highly intensive form of horticul- 

 ture. 



The selection of stock seeds and the 

 development of fine strains is carried 

 on to a great degree in California. This 

 development work is a great study and 

 many things have been learned by long 

 and patient experience. 



The California climate, whether 

 coastal or valley, has a tendency to 

 change the character of some plants, 

 especially biennials, and it is necessary 

 for the seed grower to renew his stocks 



Lester L. Morse. 



by getting stock seeds from crops grown 

 in the cast or northern Eurojje, where 

 there are definite seasons. Such items 

 as carrot, beet, onion and radisli change 

 fast, and it is one of the seed grower's 

 problems and also his secret as to how 

 lie can maintain his quality with these 

 crops. Simidy ordering a few pounds 

 from an eastern or Kurojioan grower is 

 no security, since even a grower of the 

 highest reputation may have strains 

 that "break" or have often crossed in 

 his fields. The best method is to have 

 several sources and try out stocks in his 

 trial grounds before using them. 



The tendency of onion grown too long 

 in California is to lose its keeping qual- 

 ity, and the tendency of carrots and 

 radishes is to run too large and coarse, 

 with long leaves, while beet not only 

 wants to run away with size and leaf, 

 but becomes light-colored and light- 

 zoned. All these tendencies or defects 



can be controlled, however, by the in- 

 telligent seed grower. 



On the other hand, California is the 

 home of lettuce, and we all prefer to 

 handle our own strains and carry on our 

 own development work with it. 



California Specialties. 



The list of items named are what we 

 call California specialties, including 

 carrot, celery, endive, leek, lettuce, gar- 

 den mustard, onion, parsnip, parsley, 

 radish and salsify. Such crops as beets 

 and spinach are usually grown in more 

 moderate quantities. AH of these, you 

 will observe, are what some call small 

 seeds. 



Flower seed growing is quite another 

 industry, except that most of the vege- 

 table seed growers grow sweet peas. 



Culinary, or garden peas are grown 

 successfully in California, and in 1920 

 there was about 30,000 acres put in. 

 The quality of these varies considerably 

 with the location. 



California has pretty much a monop- 

 oly of the seed production of pole beans 

 and lima beans. The former can spread 

 naturally on the ground and our dry 

 summers give the pods a fine chance to 

 ripen without discoloration. 



Many other kinds of seeds can be 

 grown successfully, and my own firm 

 grows more or less of its own sweet corn, 

 melon, squash and cucumber, but 

 these usually for our own coast markets. 



The cost of these crops is usually con- 

 siderably more than the prices charged 

 by the regular middle west growers, and 

 this branch of seed growing is not likely 

 to develop to any great proportions, al- 

 though one middle west grower is re- 

 ported to have 500 or 600 acres of water- 

 melon out this year in the San Joaquin 

 valley. 



There is practically no cabbage, broc- 

 coli or cauliflower seed grown in Califgr; 

 nia and little mangel or sugar beet. i 



Estimate of Acreage. 



On account of the unusual conditions 

 developed by the war and the great 

 surplus produced by unusually heavy 

 crops and unwarranted acreage, it is 

 difficult to estimate the extent of Cali- 

 fornia seed growing. My own estimate, 

 however, which is little better than a 

 guess, is that 10,000 acres cover all the 

 small seeds in a normal year, but, of 

 course, the last three years it has been 

 much under this figure. A normal year 

 for garden, or culinary peas is about 

 6,000 acres, and for pole, dwarf and 

 lima beans about 10,000 acres; for toma- 

 toes for seed, about 600 to 700 acres, 

 and for other miscellaneous vegetable 

 seed crops, about 1,500 to 2,000 acres. 

 Flower seeds, without sweet peas, prob- 

 ably total 1,000 acres, and sweet peas 

 alone, about 1,200 acres. 



Of the small garden seeds I would 

 estimate as normal about 3,000 acres in 

 onion, about 2,0t)0 in lettuce, about 2,000 

 in radish, about 2,000 in carrot, and 

 1,(100 for parsnip, parsley, salsify, beet 

 and miscellaneous vegetable seed crops. 



The total acreage is not large when 

 compared with other crops, and when I 

 spoke of the seed industry as suffering 

 n little in comparison with other indus- 

 tries I had in mind just such illustra- 

 tions as appear from two statements 

 which appeared in The Review recently. 

 In the Seed Trade Department of this 

 paper for May 18 it was stated that 

 last year's crop of cantaloupes grown 

 commercially was about 35,800 carloads, 

 with a value of $17,000,000, and that 



