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Seeds and Seedage 



He saves seed from each fruit separately, recording the 

 parentage; he raises the plants in separate rows, a row 

 from a single fruit, or at least from a given plant; some 

 rows show the characters persisting or even improving 

 and other rows do not; again he selects seeds from the 

 best plant, and repeats the operation until the desired at- 

 tribute or product is reproduced with fair constancy from 

 seed: then he uses his selected seed for the raising of his 

 crop. 



He must not suppose that the developed strain or va- 

 riety is permanent. He must constantly select from the 

 plants nearest his ideal or pattern, to keep the stock up 

 to grade. He will do well to have a breeding-plot in which 

 the seed-stock may be grown, if he is raising a specialty of 

 a particular kind. 



It is seen, therefore, that it is a particular business to 

 grow good seeds. The seed-grower must have an idea or 

 type and work to it. His plantations must be "rogued." 

 That is, all plants that do not meet the breeder's type 

 are pulled up and discarded, and the true or typical stock 

 is left to produce the seed. The truer and higher the 

 man's idea, the better his stock should be. It requires 

 experience to enable one to make for himself a true and 

 practical ideal of any variety of plant. He must know 

 what the market wants. He must know what his cus- 

 tomers want. He must know what will be good and 

 useful under the greatest number of conditions. He 

 must know what will be likely to be most stable and in- 

 variable. The type once apprehended, the seed-breeder 

 must thereafter discard every plant that does not closely 



