SEED -GROWING. 



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trade, the countries most interested, and the localities suitable 

 for individual kinds are too large a part of the subject to deal 

 with at present, and the difficulty of getting anything like correct 

 details is wellnigh insurmountable. I propose, therefore, to 

 confine myself to the more limited sphere of my own work, and 

 to say something on that division of seed-growing with which I 

 am more closely identified. The demand for higher-class seeds 

 has in recent years revolutionised to some extent the seed trade, 

 and now nearly every house in the trade has, or is supposed to 

 have, its own special strains. I will endeavour to give my ideas 

 as to the principles which should govern the production of high- 

 class seeds, and also say something of the methods which I 

 pursue, and which — whether right or wrong — have to my mind 

 given satisfactory results. 



At this point it may not be out of place to say that there 

 are comparatively few people who have taken the trouble to in- 

 form themselves as to what a seed really is — what a world of 

 life there is within the little shell by which it is enclosed, what 

 a power for good or for evil may have been exercised upon it, 

 as it on the parent plant became a germ of life. Those only 

 who go in for hybridising, cross-breeding, and raising of new 

 varieties of plants can realise this to the fullest extent, for as 

 they watch the development of the seed into the plant, and the 

 plant into full foliage, or flower, or fruit, there is a little flutter 

 in the cultivator's breast until he knows whether (and how much) 

 success may have crowned his efforts. Dealing, then, with such 

 interesting subjects on a large scale, and with such teeming 

 millions of dormant vegetable life, it is of particular moment to 

 the seed-grower to know not only that his seeds are of pure blood, 

 but that they are developed in a manner befitting the important 

 place they are to fill in providing for the pleasure and the sus- 

 tenance of man and beast. 



With such ideas before us let us approach the more practical 

 part of the work, bearing in mind that the plants we are now 

 dealing with are in very few ways to be compared with the 

 originals of their type which may still be found growing wild 

 in many parts of the world. The improvement which has 

 been made up to our own time we are expected not only to 

 maintain but to surpass. This object can be accomplished 

 by either or both of two different methods, each of which 



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