286 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



has some special advantages. I refer to selection and cross 

 fertilisation. 



Seeds, it is true, can be and are in some cases grown by the 

 ordinary method of sow and reap, sow and reap the same stocks 

 from year to year, without calling in the aid of either of the 

 methods I have mentioned. It will hardly be necessary to point 

 out that such a course is a mistaken one, but until a large 

 proportion of our people begin to understand that low-priced 

 seeds are not necessarily really the cheapest, so long will there 

 be a demand for seeds thus grown, and given the demand the 

 supply will quickly come. 



I will first speak of seed-growing by selection. In the 

 raising of new varieties cross fertilisation may be indispensable, 

 but in the fixing of a type nothing can beat selection. 



The term "selected seeds" will no doubt be applicable to 

 various qualities, and these will be of a higher or lower grade 

 according to the ideas of the grower as to what a "selected" 

 strain means. One grower may only consider his stock selected 

 when his seed has been grown from the produce of picked 

 plants, roots, or bulbs, while another may act upon the principle 

 (or want of it) that once selected is always selected. My own 

 idea of " selected seeds " is the crop immediately produced by 

 such plants, roots, or bulbs as have themselves undergone the 

 process of careful selection during the preceding season. Take, 

 for example, a crop of beet-root for seed. Where the roots are 

 wanted for culinary or exhibition purposes every shapely root 

 is cut or nicked with a knife. The seed produced by the very 

 finest ranks, as of the highest quality, is reserved specially 

 for competitors at exhibitions or those wanting very choice 

 seeds indeed ; and the next quality is a choice strain for more 

 general use. Each quality is grown together in a block, and 

 all unshapely roots, or those of inferior flesh, are unhesitatingly 

 thrown away. Choice carrots are nicked in the same way. 

 Turnips, leeks, onions, parsnips, and all such crops go through 

 precisely the same process, with the exception of the cutting. 

 And I should add that a few of the very best — the crime clc la 

 crdme — of each kind are reserved as the foundation for future 

 work. 



Cabbages, kales, parsley, and other such crops growing 

 above ground, including asters, marigolds, &c, in the floral 



