SEEDS AND SEED GROWING 
93 
140. Breeding and selection. — Rawson says (“Success 
in Market Gardening,” p. 57) : “Perhaps we might truth- 
fully say that the most important of all points in garden- 
ing is the right selection of seed; for without good seed 
the care and expense devoted to selecting and fitting the 
land, or procuring and using implements, fertilizers, etc., 
are all bestowed in vain.” 
It is easily possible, however, to select seeds for years 
without making any advancement. This actually hap- 
pened in the experience of Livingstone. For 15 years 
he labored in vain, eager to improve all varieties, but no 
progress was made, because wrong methods were em- 
ployed; the largest and finest specimens of tomatoes 
were selected, year after year, with little or no regard 
for the plant. Then the plant instead of the individual 
tomato was made the unit, and Livingstone soon became 
a prolific producer of important varieties; no other man 
has accomplished so much for the improvement of the tomato. 
The securing of good seed is not so much a question 
of selection as it is of careful and intelligent breeding. 
Starting with the plant as the unit, the grower must 
decide what he wants and what his market demands; 
for he himself might be very well satisfied, and his 
market very much dissatisfied. Suppose he is growing 
tomatoes and the plants are yielding well, but the fruits 
are generally rough and ill-formed, and yet, in looking 
over the field a few plants may be found' which are 
highly prolific, and also produce better-shaped fruit than 
the hundreds or thousands of other plants growing under 
the same conditions. Seed should be saved from each of 
these plants, kept separately in numbered packets, and 
the next year the plants from each lot of seed set in 
different rows or plats. One of the selected plants may 
possess greater power to perpetuate its good qualities 
than any other, but this important discovery cannot 
be made if the seed from these plants be mixed. 
