METHODS OF SAVING SEED. 



55 



all growers at first as being impracticable, but it has been found by 

 the writers and by many growers who have adopted it to be thoroly 

 practicable and in every way effective. Nearly all the growers in the 

 Connecticut Valley, where the work was first begun, are saving their 

 seed in accordance with this method, which is sufficient evidence of 

 its adaptability to practical farming conditions. The form of bag used 

 must not be thick or heavy enough to affect the natural transpiration 

 and growth of the plants. The kind which has been adopted for gen- 

 eral use is the lightest grade of manila 

 bag that can be procured at the grocery 

 or country stores. There is greater lia- 

 bility of the seed being injured under 

 southern or tropical conditions by 

 using a bag which is too heavy than 

 there is in the North. In order to pre- 

 vent any possibility of injury from 

 this cause, the writers have adopted 

 the method of puncturing the bag with 

 a large number of very fine holes, 

 which will admit air and at the same 

 time are not large enough to allow in- 

 sects to pass through and carry the 

 pollen from plant to plant. 



The bags may be punctured by using 

 a sewing machine and arranging the 

 bags as in sewing ordinary cloth. The 

 sewing-machine needle of course must 

 not be threaded for this purpose. For 

 the average tobacco plant the paper bag 

 of 12-pound size has been found to be 

 the most satisfactory. When the plants 

 to be bagged are of a small variety, 

 the 10-pound bag may be large enough, 

 but it will not allow sufficient room 

 for the proper development of the seed 

 head on a tobacco plant of average size. 



The proper time for bagging is just before the first flowers open 

 and are ready for pollination. At this time the stem of the flower 

 head is sufficiently strong to support the weight of an ordinary paper 

 bag without injuring the plant in any way. When the bags are ap- 

 plied earlier than this, the operation is more difficult and the tender 

 top of the plant is liable to be broken off or bent by the weight of the 

 bag. When the growing plant has reached the proper stage for bag- 

 ging, all branches just below those which form the main flower head 



96 



Fig. 6.— Tobacco seed plant at proper 

 stage of maturity for the application 

 of a paper bag. The bag should be 

 placed over the seed head just before 

 the first flowers open. The top leaves 

 and sucker branches should be re- 

 moved before arranging the bag, in 

 order that nothing may interfere with 

 the development of the seed head. 



