AUTHOR’S PREFACE. 
SEED-GROWING properly pertains to an agricultural 
country, such as is the United States. It is a business 
in which the profits are large and one which to supply 
our needs in fuli affords great opportunity for much 
enlargement in this country. It is also an industry 
that could be built up here for export trade, which at 
present amounts to comparatively nothing. 
In all candor it must be said, we do not stand in the 
front rank before the world as seed-growers. For, while 
the past quarter of a century has seen much progress 
here in seed-growing, the industry with us is still in a 
stage of infancy and much remains to be done. As 
evidenced by the following pages, we still depend to a 
large extent on European growers for the best grown 
seeds of many varieties, particularly of beet, cabbage, 
carrot, cauliflower, kale, kohl rabi, leek, onion (a few 
kinds), parsley, parsnip, radish, spinach, turnip, the 
choicer grades of flower seeds and all our Fall planting 
bulbs. The exceptions to these, however, namely, 
peas, beans, celery, cucumber, lettuce, melon, tomato, 
certain kinds of onion, we no longer import, for we 
have demonstrated our ability to grow the finest seeds 
of these ourselves more cheaply than can be done in 
Europe. Therefore what we are doing with these we 
can also do in producing commercially all other seeds 
required for the garden. 
Why should we not lead the world in the production 
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