146 



GROWING SEED CROPS 



ferior to those of hard wood. The bolts which 

 secure the journal block, in which the left-hand 

 roller turns, should move in slots in the frame so 

 that the rollers can be set different distances 



Fig. 228. Machine foi separating watermelon seed. 



apart. For cucumbers, tomatoes and watermelons, 

 it will be found best to set the rollers as close as 

 possible without injuring the seeds ; but as open as 

 possible and still turn, for summer squash and 

 muskmelons. The frame is made of 4x4, and 

 may be of pine. Fig. 228 illustrates the machine 

 in action. In Fig. 229 is pictured a table on 

 which cucumbers may be seeded. 



(3) Growing and breeding seed crops for home use. 



It has been clearly demonstrated that it is pos- 

 sible to increase the product per acre of the average 

 farm up to 40 per cent simply by the use of im- 

 proved strains of seed developed on the farm itself, 

 at the cost of a little well-directed effort on the 

 part of the farmer. There is no more effective 

 way of increasing the money profit of the farm and 

 the attractiveness of farming as an occupation, 

 particularly to alert -minded young men, than 

 through wise efforts in the improvement of the 

 quality of the seed to be used. 



A most important factor controlling the profit 

 of any crop is uniformity in the plants. With most 

 crops, the profit would be greatly increased if 

 each plant were only equal in quantity and quality 

 of yield to that of the best one-third of them. 

 Superlative individuals rarely add to the value of 

 a crop, while markedly inferior ones always detract 

 from it. 



The character and potentiality of every plant 

 grown directly from seed seems to be fixed and 

 inherent in the seed itself, and is made up of 

 a balanced sum of potentialities and limitations 

 inherited in different degrees from each of its 

 ancestors for an indefinite number of generations. 

 There is a difference in the degree to which plants 

 have the power of transmitting their individual 

 characteristics to their descendants, or in their 

 prepotency, and we can be sure as to the potential 

 character of the seed only in proportion as we 

 know the character and prepotent power of its 

 ancestors. It may not be possible to know this 

 fully, but we can accomplish much by a wise sys- 

 tem of plant selection and breeding. A somewhat 

 full discussion of this subject is given in Chapter 

 III and under a number of the individual crops, so 

 that it is necessary here to give only a few general 



directions. Study your plant and settle on the 

 exact type which would be most practically desira- 

 ble, and write out as full and complete description 

 of its characteristics as possible. With the descrip- 

 tion in hand, select one to ten or more plants, 

 which most fully accord with it, avoiding those of 

 phenomenal excellence in some particulars at the 

 cost of deficiencies in others. Save the seed of 

 each selected plant separately, even if the plants 

 themselves cannot be distinguished from each other, 

 and plant that of each selected individual by itself, 

 though all may be side by side in a single block. 

 When the plants mature, go over the different lots, 

 that is, the plants grown from the seed of each of 

 the selected individual plants, and reject those 

 lots in which the plants show the greatest varia- 

 tions, even if in so doing you reject a few plants 

 of superlative merit. Select the two or three lots 

 in which the plants most uniformly accord with the 

 description, and from these lots select plants to 

 repeat the process. The object is to secure a fixed 

 type of plants that are uniformly of the desired 

 type, rather than superlative individual plants. The 

 remainder o f 

 the seed from 

 the best lots 

 can be used for 

 a general crop. 

 The essen- 

 tials for success 

 in seed -breed- 

 ing are (1) a 

 clear concep- 

 tion of the ex- 

 act type f 

 plant wanted ; 

 (2) a carefully 

 written out de- 

 scription of 

 that type and 

 very rigid ad- 

 herence to it 

 in all selec- 

 tions ; (3) saving and planting separately the seed 

 of each selected plant ; (4) continuing to select 

 from generation to generation from the product of 

 the selected plants those that are most uniformly 

 of the desired type. In some cases, where such 

 crops as garden peas, beans or sweet corn, which 

 have some feeding value, have been grown, farmers 

 often come into possession of seed that has been 

 rejected by seedsmen as unfit for their use, and 

 plant it as a field crop, making no effort to have 

 the seed pure and unmixed. Such stock speedily 

 degenerates and can be sold only at a reduced price 

 or when the regular supply has failed. Quite a 

 proportion of the tomato seed used in this country 

 comes from canning factories, being washed out 

 from the waste of the tables where the fruit is 

 prepared for canning, or from lots of fruit that is 

 over-ripe, or that used for catsup. If saved from 

 equally good fruit, such seed is as good as that 

 from fields grown especially for seed, but usually 

 it comes from a mixture of fruit of different sorts 

 and qualities and is of very poor quality. 



Fig. 229. Table on which cucumbers may 

 be seeded. The fruit is emptied on 

 the table and halved by being pushed 

 against the set blade, and the seeds 

 then scraped into barrels as shown. 



