THE SEED 



23 



hills, and then testing the quality of the fruit be- 

 fore saving the seeds, the more common practice 

 is to wait until the wagon comes from the field with 

 a load and then to select the seed melons from this 

 promiscuous lot. (See Fig. 4.) In this way the 

 grower may be able to preserve the type of melon 

 he wishes to grow at the expense of those other 

 very important qualities. This is like the old 



Fig. 4. A poor Netted Gem, the result of haphazard selection of 

 seed melons. 



method of saving seed corn by waiting until plant- 

 ing time and then going to the crib and selecting the 

 type of ear wanted without knowing anything about 

 the kind of plant from which it came. 



Many experiments have been tried along this line, 

 not only with melons, but with other crops as well, 

 all of which tend to prove the truth of this state- , 



