r2 AMEKICAX HOME GAKDEX. 



ties or characteristics that lie seldom or never omits it as an 

 item in liis estimate of the value of any given variety. Thus, 

 if a carrot be of a light or lemon color, he infers that it lacks 

 richness of flavor ; if a beet be streaked -ffith white, he con- 

 cludes that, however valuable it may be for early use, on ac- 

 count of its free growth, it will prove strong, or, at best, want- 

 ing in sweetness when kept for winter use ; and in respect to 

 turnips, he is familiar vdth the fact that, other things being 

 equal, the yellow varieties are uniformly richer and sweeter 

 than the white. 



DETERIORATION. 



There is an ever-recuning tendency in improved seeding 

 vegetables baekwai-d to their pjrimitive condition as mere self- 

 reproducers ; and here, as in the matter of vegetable forms, the 

 constant effort of the cultivator is required to coimteract this 

 tendenc}', with this difference, however, in the mere business 

 view of it, that while it is almost always the interest of the 

 cultivator to improve vegetable fomis to the utmost, the dimin- 

 ished average product of seei.l from such improved varieties con- 

 stitutes a standing and strong temptation to the mere seed- 

 raiser to permit this natm-al deterioration to occm-, quantity in 

 the yield being generally the measme of his business pirofits. 



This retrograde tendency may be suddenly stimulated and 

 strengthened liy various causes in the different kinds of vegeta- 

 bles. In peas, beans, and the vaiious rumiing vines, it often 

 becomes apparent in a single season, when the seed is saved 

 from the later portions of the crop, the earlier product having 

 been eaten while comparatively rare, or sold before the mai'ket 

 became glutted. Such seeds produce what may properly be 

 termed new and debased varieties, '"early peas" that are late 

 and unprolific, or " six- week beans" that in sixteen weeks may 

 possilily ripen a scattering and scanty crop. 



A similar effect, though not always equal in degree, is pro- 

 duced when plants which, being properly biennial, ought to 

 " bottom," as the turnip, or " head," as the cabbage, arc sown 

 at unsuitable seasons, and in consequence are driven up to seed 

 without these important preliminary processes. Thus voit 



