128 Gardening 
a as Sve, 
lic. 79. A portion of the seed trial grounds of a large seed company. Each 
row is numbered, and a careful record is kept of the growth and yield of the 
plants. Reliable seed firms spend much money in keeping up the quality of the 
seeds they sell. 
will often be of mixed parentage. When this is the case, 
they may not be true to varieties, 
Most standard varieties are already highly bred and 
are the result of repeated selection; they appear to have 
reached their limits as far as the development of desirable 
qualities is concerned. Variation in such highly bred 
varieties most often gives rise to poorer plants. The 
seed breeder watches carefully and pulls up such poor 
plants (or ‘‘ rogues,” as he calls them), so that they 
cannot become the parents of his later crops: 
Seed growing an important industry. The best 
seedsmen maintain extensive fields for growing seeds of 
plants of standard varieties. They also have large 
growing plots for testing the seeds of other growers and 
for experimenting in the production of new varieties. 
Special and often expensive apparatus is used for collect- 
