24 



GOOD SEED. 



Professor Watts: No, I haven't. There is no reason why it 

 shouldn't be done to perpetuate it. That is a splendid idea. That 

 idea is worth a thousand dollars to this audience. 



Mr. Tuttle: Isn't it true that a great many seeds in certain 

 localities deteriorate, the plants deteriorate.^ With farm seeds, for 

 instance with buckwheat,- — I never have succeeded in raising buck- 

 wheat that would give as good seed as I could buy of Japanese buck- 

 wheat. And I have found the same thing with oats. I think peas 

 would come under the same head. Long Island believes that that 

 is true of potatoes, notwithstanding that Brother Fullerton has 

 proven the contrary. There is a variety of our farm and garden 

 vegetables and grains that seem to deteriorate some after the first 

 year, and more as you go along. Can that be remedied in a practical 

 way by the practical working farmer? Or is it the safest thing to 

 follow your advice and buy those seeds from the most reliable houses, 

 specialists? 



Professor W^atts: I think the question you have brought up 

 is important, but you must bear this in mind. With your buck- 

 wheat, you are not selecting the choice seed, or with your corn. I 

 suppose a corn grower would simply reach in his crib and pull out 

 enough to plant his field. There is no selection in this. Under these 

 conditions, I presume the crop would deteriorate. With these we 

 have been discussing, you have power to pick out certain plants 

 with special characteristics. Here is another point. You may have 

 ten plants that all look alike, are equally valuable. But in all 

 probability, one of the ten has the power to perpetuate its good 

 qualities to a much greater extent than any of the other nine. This 

 brings up the important point Mr. White made of having your 

 breeding plot. With the farm seeds, there is no selection. Under 

 these conditions, it often deteriorates. 



Mr. Tuttle: Corn is the one thing that doesn't deteriorate with 

 us. We need not select. 



President White: There is one case of selecting cabbage seed. 

 I was doing considerable business with a man in Hartford, New Jersey. 

 He had a strain of cabbage carrying the local name Hartford. This 

 man said for over thirty years they had selected heads from the fields 

 in which they grow an average of ten acres of cabbage. He would 

 go over the field, putting a flat stone on every head of cabbage he 



