88 GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 



child can learn how to take a given number of seeds and 

 spread them in moist cloths between two dinner plates laid 

 edge to edge. Then, by counting the sprouted seeds, he can 

 get the percentage of germination. This exercise, by the way, 

 makes a capital introduction to the study of percentage. In 

 truth it would be hard to find a better. 



A forcible illustration of how this exercise can be turned 

 to practical account is contributed by a young girl of thirteen 

 who has become so efficient in seed testing that she tests all 

 the seeds used on her father's model farm 1 covering about 

 eight acres. As may be imagined, she is learning a great 

 many things in the course of doing this very helpful piece of 

 work. Some consider this the most effective sort of education. 



Before beginning to test seed, it is a good plan, so they 

 say, to examine it as follows : Weigh out three grams of seed, 

 — onion, clover, or timothy, for instance, — and spread it on a 

 sheet of paper. Then with a hand lens separate the seeds 

 into three piles : in the first put the chaff, dirt, broken seed, 

 etc. ; in the second, all the weed seed ; in the third, the good 

 seed. Then weigh each lot, comparing the results. The 

 good seed can then be tested as above for germination. Try- 

 ing several samples of the same kind of seed from different 

 sources soon teaches a gardener with whom to trade. 



By the time the seeds have been tested, much labor will of 

 course have been expended upon the land. First it has been 

 thoroughly spaded ; then the large lumps have been broken 

 with the fork ; and afterwards it has been raked over. Is the 

 soil, then, we ask, ready to receive the seeds ? Far from it ; 

 the gardener must not be discouraged at hearing that a 

 creditable seed bed calls for a great deal more attention. In 

 fact, the most irksome and, no doubt to his surprise, the most 

 important task of all remains. This consists in picking out 

 1 G. W. Field, Sharon, Massachusetts. 



