28 
February, 1890. 
Garden Work for February. 
Now is the time in the latitude of Phila- 
delphia to start early cabbage seed in hot 
beds to be transfered to cold frames as soon 
as large enough to handle, so that they can 
be hardened and prepared to go out doers as 
soon as the weather will admit. Plants 
raised in this way are better in our opinion 
than plants wintered over from fall sown 
seeds. Our own practice is to sow them in 
boxes in a warm green house and as soon as 
possible transfer them toother boxes giving 
more room (75 to a flat, made of a soap 
box cut in two) and set the boxes in a 
cold frame. The plants are then lifted from 
the boxes with a trowel with a lump of rich 
soil attached and grow off without check. 
In the latitude of Southern Va. this should 
have been done a month ago. 
Tomato seed should now be started in a 
like manner, but in localities where it will 
still be too cold ten weeks hence to put them 
in the open ground, a little later will be 
best. Early tomatoes should be started at 
least ten (10) weeks before it is safe to put 
them out doors and should be transplanted 
at least twice (three times is better) before 
their final planting. We have never found 
a tomato that will give ripe fruit in less than 
about 4)^ months from the sowing of the 
seed, and no amount of forcing of late sown 
plants can overcome this matter of age. 
Don’t think you are forwarding tomato 
plants by sowing them thickly in a late hot- 
bed and letting them draw up tall and slim 
as knitting needles until suddenly trans- 
planted to the open ground. Such plants 
are worthless for early fruiting. Sow the 
seeds in boxes in a greenhouse fully ten 
weeks before wanted outside. Transplant 
into other boxes as soon as large enough to 
handle. Keep them there in a cool house 
and near the glass until safe to transplant 
into a cold frame. Once in the frame give 
air on all favorable occasions and gradually 
inure them to the outer air, and when trans- 
planting time comes you will have plants 
worth setting and which will be as early as 
any in your latitude. 
In warm soils and southern localities 
peas should go into the ground as soon as it 
can be worked. Early potatoes will be the 
next to receive attention and in this lat- 
itude the cabbage plants raised in January 
will go into the open ground. Climate and 
soil govern these things to such an extent 
that no general rule can be adopted. I 
have here in Raleigh a neighbor who con- 
tinues his northern practice of sowing cab- 
bage seed in September and transplanting 
to a cold frame. Now as I write, December 
2l8t, we have not had frost enough in Rale- 
igh to kill scarlet geraniums, and his cab- 
bage plants in the frame are a mass of 
struggling foliage though without the sash- 
es, and are so large that the sashes can- 
not be put over them. My cabbage plants 
yet to be raised from seed sown January 
1st. will probably be heading when his are 
running to seed, if he ever gets them in 
fair order through the frosts of January, for 
the June like weather December has given 
us is unusual even in this latitude. 
If you cannot do any work out doors cul- 
tivate the indoor crop of ideas and have 
plans all ready for the spring campaign. 
At any cost get your garden seed in hand 
before it is needed. 
Seed* and Seedsmen. 
Those of us who have been interested in 
horticultural matters for thirty years past 
can well remember the amount of trash 
that was then imported from Europe and 
sold in this country as garden seeds, and 
“warranted pure and genuine.” We can 
also remember the worse than trash which 
European seedsmen used to dump on our 
shores to the order of the old “Patent Of- 
fice” seed distribution. We remember 
the stale seed sold then on commission in 
the country stores, and how we sowed 
tobacco sent from the Patent Office and rais- 
ed Mullein plants from them, as the writer 
once did. We have seen how an enlighten- 
ed agricultural press has gradually by its 
protests diminished the ridiculous Depart- 
ment distribution of common seeds, and 
hope yet to see it entirely abolished. We 
have watched with pleasure the healthy 
growth of the American seed growing in- 
terest, and the gradual education of the 
consumers to the idea that in some lines of 
seeds the American grown seeds are the 
cheapest for our use at ten times the price 
of the same varieties grown in the moist 
climate of England. We have seen with 
pleasure that the strict testing of seeds by 
our large dealers has compelled European 
dealers to be sure of the purity of those 
seeds we are still obliged to buy from them 
and how the same practice has raised the 
standard of cur home grown seeds to a 
high point of excellence, until we are now 
so sure of the stocks offered by our leading 
seedsmen that an experienced gardener feels 
more sure of results from them than if he 
had raised them himself under the difficul- 
ties attending their growth on a small scale 
and in crowded grounds. The seeds are not 
“warranted” now, but we have a thousand 
times more confidence in them than we had 
in the old “warranted pure and genuine” 
seeds of thirty years ago. In fact a gardener 
of experience now a days would regard with 
suspicion the man who would undertake 
to warrant his seeds in everybody’s hands. 
Prof. Bailey of the Cornell Experiment 
Station, a competent and skillful horticul- 
turist, after an exhaustive series of tests of 
American garden seeds reached the con- 
clusion that “the endeavor to determine the 
relative merits and honesty of seedsmen, by 
means of testing their seeds, is the merest 
folly. There appears to be no necessity 
for seed control stations in this coun- 
try, certainly not for snch seeds as fall into 
the hands of the horticulturist. There is 
now such sharp competition in the seed busi- 
ness that seedsmen must exercise every 
caution in order to demand trade.” In the 
Delaware Station similar experiments lead 
the Director to say “that the condition of 
the seed market in Delaware is decidedly 
better than its citizens have expected.” 
At the North Carolina Station a series of 
tests were recently made in a laboratory, of 
garden seed from a number of the leading 
dealers but purchased from store-keepers in 
North Carolina, and from this imperfect 
and unreliable test, which was unfair to the 
seedsmen because no one could tell how 
long the seeds had been in the hands of the 
country store-keepers, the conclusion was 
reached that there is need for a law re- 
quiring seedsmen to warrant .heir seeds. 
Such inquiries are not experimentative 
and if the stations propose to watch the 
honesty of the country store-keepers in one 
article of their stock, there is no reason 
why they should not inspect the quality of 
the lard, calico and a hundred other arti- 
cles they sell, and thus fritter away funds 
intended for practical results in agriculture 
and horticulture. Laboratory seed testing 
is usually mere nonsense and many so-call- 
ed seed testing contrivances are really ar- 
rangements for hindering the germination 
of seeds. Any one who has not confidence 
that his local dealer is selling him fresh 
seeds can easily get them by mail from the 
larger dealers or he can test their germin- 
ating qualities himself as well or better than 
a laboratory seed tester. Count out a num- 
ber of seeds taken at random from a pack- 
et. Place them between two folds of white 
flannel, Place the flannel in an ordinary 
saucer and keep it constantly moist and 
place it on the mantelpiece in a warm sitting 
room. A piece of slate laid over the saucer 
will prevent the evaporation of the water, 
and hasten germination. Examine from 
time to time and count the number 
of seeds which sprout and the proportion 
can be easily ascertained. But you may be 
sure of one thing and that is that seeds 
bought from any of our leading dealers 
are probably as pure or purer than those 
sold in European countries where there are 
government ‘ 'seed controls,” if the samples 
of seeds we have bought from those coun- 
tries is any criterion. If a florist in this 
country buys the European “novelties” the 
season of their introduction here in the fore- 
ign sealed packets and gets one or two 
plants from a packet he thinks himself for- 
tunate. No, we do not want any seed con- 
trol stations nor laboratory seed tests. We 
do not want to buy our garden seeds from 
a charlatan who will undertake to warrant 
the delicate dormant embryo of life in the 
hands of ignorance or dishonesty. We want 
the untrammeled American seed business 
to continue as it has begun, to go on to 
perfection until all the cheap Johns and 
dealers in old stock are driven out by 
an enlightened public refusing to patronize 
| them.— W. F. Massey. 
