Miscellaneous. 



354 



[April 1908. 



of the effect of the change of conditions 

 on the type of tobacco and their neglect 

 to appreciate the necessity of securing 

 strains of plants by seed selection of the 

 desirable types adapted to the particular 

 conditions of soil and climate in south- 

 ern Florida. If the acclimatization of 

 these strains had been accomplished by 

 seed selection in small fields, with little 

 loss to the growers, the strains could 

 have been grown on a more extensive 

 scale with better chances of success. 



In order to illustrate the necessity for 

 the acclimatization of a variety of to- 

 bacco before it is grown on an extensive 

 scale, the successful experiments of the 

 Bureau of Soils in the introduction of 

 Cuban tobacco iu Texas may be cited. 

 After a previous unsuccessful attempt 

 by farmers in Texas to grow Cuban to- 

 bacco from freshly-impor ted Cubau seed, 

 the Bureau of Soils bes?an systematic 

 experiments in growing small fields of 

 tobacco and saving seed ot the most 

 desirable plants according to the method 

 described in this bulletin. In these 

 crops certain plants were found which 

 produced leaves possessing the flavour 

 and aroma desired in a high-grade 

 filler tobacco. The seeds from these 

 plants were saved under bag, and their 

 product has been found to possess the 

 desirable characters of the parent plants. 

 This tobacco has been sold at profitable 

 prices, and the area devoted to the grow- 

 ing of this crop is being gradually ex- 

 tended in order to meet the demands of 

 the manufacturers for this grade of 

 filler tobacco. In northern Florida the 

 tobacco growers, as a result of their 

 experience with the imported Sumatra 

 seed, experimented in growing, in the 

 open, small fields of a cigar filler tobacco 

 of a variety, the seed of which was 

 originally introduced from Cuba. This 

 variety of Florida filler tobacco is now 

 being grown extensively and profitably 

 in that section. 



The writers during the past season 

 planted in Florida Connecticut-grown 

 seed of the Sumatra variety. It was 

 found that while there was a noticeable 

 change in the shape of leaf aud in some 

 minor characters in the Florida-grown 

 tobacco, there was no violent breaking 

 up of type or indi iatiou of unusal 

 variablity. This experiment and other 

 observations have led the writers to 

 believe that the effect of changing seed 

 from the north to the south is not ac- 

 companied by such marked changes as 

 when seed is taken from tropical condi- 

 tions to northern latitudes. 



In summing up the observations on 

 this subject it can safely be said that 

 it is a dangerous policy to plant large 

 crops of tobacco with imported seed or 



with seed from a very different section. 

 In most cases it has resulted in failure 

 and caused considerable loss to the 

 growers. The general crops should be 

 planted from seed produced under the 

 same conditions as the crops which is 

 to be grown. If it is necessary to 

 change the seed or desirable to test 

 imported varieties, it should be done 

 on a small scale, followed by a most 

 careful selection of seed plants, and 

 the seed should be saved under bag, 

 safe from cross-fertilization. 



On account of the large quantity of 

 seed produced by a single plant under 

 normal conditions, and the fact that the 

 various characters of a tobacco plant are 

 inherited so strikingly and uniformly by 

 its progeny, the following year when the 

 seed is saved under bag, protected from 

 cross-fertilization, it is possible for the 

 tobacco grower to secure uniformity 

 with a considerable degree of improve- 

 ment in type, quality, and yield by one 

 year's selection. One plant often 

 furnishes enough seed for an entire crop, 

 and the plants raised from this seed 

 always produce a very uniform lot of 

 tobacco when cros^-fertilization is not 

 allowed to take place. — U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, Ball- 96, March 12, 

 1907. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF SEED-TESTING. 



By T. Johnson, D.Sc, 

 Professor of Botany in the Royal Col- 

 lege of Science, Dublin. 



While Botany, like other subjects of 

 study, will always have its followers 

 who pursue it for its own sake, or 

 because of the increase of knowledge of 

 Nature its successful prosecution brings, 

 there are others who through taste or 

 other cause devote themselves to botany 

 from the applied or economic point of 

 view. The magnificent work done by 

 the English botani-ts in the nineteenth 

 century was due, in large measure, as 

 Sir J. Hooker himself once told me, to 

 the demands of people at home and 

 abroad for information as to the nature 

 and uses of the plants forming the flora 

 of our newly-acquired Colonies. It was, 

 on the other hand, the absence of Colo- 

 nies before 1880 which helped to produce 

 the splendid results in anatomical and 

 physiological botany for which Germany 

 became famous. 



There are two branches of economic 

 botany, the foundations of which have 

 been laid practically within the last 

 fifty years — that bearing on plant dis- 

 eases or plant-pathology, and that of 

 seed-testing. 



