■34 



SEED WARRANTY. 



When in Canada two years ago, I went to see a man 

 who has made a specialty of growing sets, and he gave 

 me all the information he could. He raises hundreds of 

 bushels and sells them in the spring at wholesale. He 

 raises what he calls the Kentucky set onion, a nice, flat, 

 brown onion that is grown as a set the first year, a ma- 

 ture the second, and produces seed the third. Sets of 

 this variety, when an inch in diameter, rarely go to seed. 

 I believe that the habit of requiring two years to come 

 to maturity has been bred into this variety so long that 

 it is better for sets than those that are strictly biennial. 

 I raised sets of it last year which produced nice onions 

 this season, scarcely any going to seed, and none grow- 

 ing double. 



Two years ago I raised the Silver King, Early Pearl 



Prizetaker and Spanish King from the seed, and last 

 year from the sets. The last is the best of the lot, and 

 really a fine variety, although not quite uniform in color 

 and shape. It is very large indeed. It is an easy mat- 

 ter to raise sets of any of these large onions, but they 

 are very hard to keep. I have wondered if they could 

 not be kept in cold storage. If they can be, I would 

 prefer this method to sowing the seed under glass in 

 February and transplanting in April. It is much less 

 work to raise onions from sets than from seed, as there 

 is no thinning, and no weeding among delicate things 

 like seedling onions. They ripen considerable earlier 

 than if grown from seed, and usually bring a better 

 price at that time than if sold \-aXe.r .—Matthew Craw, 

 ford, in Alli-gan {Mick.) Gazette. 



SEED WARRANTY. 



THERE is no subject more difficult to under- 

 stand, no subject upon which there is less 

 reliable data to base certain and definite 

 conclusions, than is the subject of tests 

 of the vitality of seeds. 



An experience of nearly fifty years in handling and 

 testing seeds of all kinds has at times developed such 

 extraordinary and perplexing results as to confirm me 

 in the conclusion that the vitality of all seeds is con- 

 trolled by conditions above and beyond the present 

 reach of science. Many people believe, and honestly 

 believe, that seed sown in properly prepared ground, 

 and at what is supposed to be the proper time, must 

 grow, if the seed is good : and that if the seed does not 

 grow under such conditions it is proof positive that the 

 seed is not good. 



Your correspondent, W. A. Hale (December, page 

 737), is, I judge from the tenor of his article, one of 

 these honest people. It is simply a delusion, arising 

 from limited experience. When the embryo is forming, 

 growing and developing in the seed pod, it is subject to 

 the conditions of the atmosphere, which may be humid 

 or dry, hot or cool, or cold. The seed pods on one side 

 of the plant may be exposed to one set of conditions, 

 the pods on the other side of the plant to other condi- 

 tions. For that reason the seeds may ripen differently. 

 The germ of most seeds is enclosed in a shell or outer 

 covering. That shell may, by reason of prevailing con- 

 ditions, be hard or soft. If hard, the germ encounters 

 a resistance in breaking through that may be fatal. 

 After the seed is sown it is subjected to atmospheric 

 conditions over which no one has any control, and no 

 one fully understands. Currents of electricity are 

 passing and repassing at all times, that must have more 

 or less influence of vegetation Why do we see whole 

 strips of corn, of more or less length, in which the seed 

 has failed to grow, and which the farmer has to replant ? 

 Do we charge the farmer with planting poor seed in 



those strips ? Do we not see in the garden strips that 

 have failed to grow, whilst the spaces on either end of 

 the same row are in a flourishing condition of vitality ? 

 Do we charge the gardener with sowing poor seed in 

 some places, and good seed in others ? I have known 

 seeds nine years old to grow freely, and new fresh seeds 

 not grow at 'all. I have known beans that would grow 

 only 20 per cent, in the spring, grow, from samples 

 taken out of the same bag, 100 per cent, in the fall. If 

 the first sample had been tried in the fall, and the 

 second in the spring, we might have endeavored to ex- 

 plain it upon the theory, that in the course of nature 

 seeds would be the more likely to grow in the spring. 

 But the reverse was the case. I, have known of hun- 

 dreds of instances of seeds taken out of the same pack- 

 age widely varying in the percentages of growth in 

 different situations. 



There is no radical rule by which to determine the 

 vitality of seeds ; there never has been and never will 

 be until the multitudinous laws of nature are more fully 

 understood than they have been so far. For any seeds- 

 man to guarantee any percentage of vitality, as pro- 

 posed by Mr. Hale, would be to guarantee what it is 

 utterly out of their power to carry out. 



The remark about the cremation system is an un- 

 charitable and uncalled-for insinuation against the hon- 

 esty and integrity of the firm alluded to. The dating 

 of papers of seeds has been practiced by that firm for a 

 number of years past, and is the one sensible sugges- 

 tion in Mr. Hale's communication. 



It is the fashion with many persons to look upon 

 seedsmen as cheats, ready at all times to take advantage 

 of their fellow men. It is a great mistake. If a proper 

 investigation could be ma'de, it would no doubt prove 

 that the average integrity of the seedsmen of the 

 United States ranges as high as that of any other class 

 of the business community, and that they try constant- 

 ly and with expensive effort to improve their methods. 



Thos. O'Neill. 



