Improving the Quality of Farm 
Products by Using Improved Seed. 
BY N. J. SHEPHERD. 
A long text but an important one. Farm¬ 
ers all acknowledge the importance of tak¬ 
ing. every precaution to select only the best 
when they desire to improve the quality of 
their live stock, but how many are willling 
to take the same pains in order to improve 
the quality of their grain crops? 
Many a farmer who would never think, 
under any circumstances, of allowing his 
stock to be bred indiscriminately, will go to 
the corn crib in the spring and attempt to 
select the best ears out of the lot for seed. 
He will, when he gets ready to sow his 
wheat, go to the granary and select out of 
his bast looking wheat what he thinks will 
be enough to sow his field. No effort is 
made to select the best of his oats for seed; 
all are threshed and put in the granary to¬ 
gether, and what are left at seeding time 
in the spring are used for seed. In what we 
call truck garden seed the same judgment 
is used. Instead of assorting and selecting 
his seed potatoes in the fall at digging, all 
are stored away together and in the spring 
he selects out a sufficient quantity for seed. 
His supply is often scant and he too often 
concludes it will be economical to plant the 
little ones and keep the large ones to eat. 
If he saves seed in his garden it is generally 
from what is left after the family table is 
supplied, partially, at least, yet he wonders 
why his seed or crops run out so easily. He 
must change seed. Not all farmers do this. 
There is a large, growing class who, by ex¬ 
perience, have learned better. These farm¬ 
ers have learned that the only way of keep¬ 
ing up the quality of their farm products 
is to use nothing but the best for seed. 
They make money because by the use of 
good seed they makegood crops, just as the 
stock breeder by breeding only the best se¬ 
cures better stock for which he realizes bet¬ 
ter prices. It is useless to expect to keep 
up the quality unless we are first willing to 
take every precaution to have only the best 
for seed. It is better economy to purchase 
reliable seeds from dealers who make a busi¬ 
ness of selecting only the best, even at much 
higher price, than to use poor seed in which 
no care has been taken in the selection. In 
my experience, — and every year I farm 
adds to my convictions,—there are three 
essentials to successful and profitable farm¬ 
ing. These are good soil and thorough pre¬ 
paration before planting, good seed, and 
thorough cultivation. And we cannot ex¬ 
pect the best results if either of these is neg¬ 
lected, for we all know that even with good 
seed, if no preparation of the soil is givan, 
and no cultivation, we will have no crops 
worth mentioning, and the same result will 
be obtained if we prepare the land, sow se¬ 
lected seed and yet fail to properly cultivate, 
so that if you have not the time nor inclina¬ 
tion to properly select only the best of your 
own crops for seed, it will be better econo, 
my to purchase from those who have. 
I believe there is no great cause for most 
farm seeds to “run out” excepting neglect 
to select only the best at the proper time, 
but this must be done and at the right time. 
In any case we cannot reasonably expect to 
improve the quality of our crops until we 
are willing to take considerable pains to 
obtain good seed. 
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