398 Importance of Good Seed. 
first and the last piece, but the best of all the pieces. Not 
satisfied with the robery below the surface of the ground, it ex- 
tends its broad leaves to the sun, and makes tlie first use of the 
light and heat, transmitting to its weak neighbor what remains; 
and from the dews and rains, its own water casks must first be 
filled, however thirsty its feeble companion may be. Of the 
early causes, imperfect tillage undoubtedly, has much effect. One 
kernel may be half covered, upon a bunch of grass sods; another 
buried under the same turf below the full influence of light and 
heat, while a third is placed at a suitable depth in mellow earth. 
This is often most strikingly exhibited in buck-wheat, a crop for 
which mellow ground in ordinary cases is indispensable. If the 
ground is plowed in large furrows and sown without previous 
harrowing, as many are in the habit of doing, no inconsiderable 
part of the seed will fall so low, and be buried by the harrow so 
amply, that a late and sickly dwaif at the feet of its more for- 
tunate neighbor, will be all that can be expected. 
But the cause to which I must more particularly call attention 
at this time, is a difference in the seed ^wn. In my neighbor- 
hood, great pains are taken by farmers and gardeners, to secure good 
seed. I speak not now of clean seed; not if sowing a mixture 
of rye, chess, cockle, charlock, red root, tares, dock, southern 
plaintain, and Canada thistles, and calling it wheat, but of seed, 
the individual grains of which shall be full and sound, ripe and 
fat. An excellent farmer taught me, while yet in early boyhood, 
that seed-corn should be selected in the field, and only the long, 
full ripe ears be saved, and other things being equal, they should 
be selected where two ears grow upon one stalk. This I suppose 
is in accordance with the practice of all careful farmers. If this 
selection is made before the husk is changed by frost, the earliest 
ears are easily distinguished. They should be braided by the husk 
in bunches of convenient size, and hung up where the possibility 
of heating or moulding is out of the question. By this course I 
am satisfied that not only vegetation, and a fuller and more thrifty 
blade is insured, but the best kinds may be made better, and 
foreign varieties be acclimated, and perhaps some of them made 
valuable. 
Let those who raise seed for sale, answer for themselves, but 
sure I am, that no sensible man would think of saving/br his oum 
use, the seeds of a small insipid melon, or of a thin fleshed, watery, 
coarse grained pumpkin or squash, although he might be confident 
they were fully ripe, and would in all probability vegetate. 
The short, yet massive " cabbage turnip," which produces a 
large, compact head, is selected to furnish seed for another season. 
Such beets, and carrots, and turnips, as you would wish your 
future crop to be, are to be put out for seed, and the product of 
