characteristics and in potency of seed, the 
results sometimes of nature’s sports and at 
other times of cross-fertilization, selects 
them from his general crop, and breeds up 
varieties of old species sometimes so 
distinct as hardly to be recognized—but he 
must rot breed too high—he must bring 
to the culture of his crop of seed, if not 
scientific, at least very practical observa¬ 
tions upon the subject of sterility, a condi¬ 
tion so very frequently showing itself 
under systems of high culture, over-feed¬ 
ing and interbreeding—these influences 
producing an excessive growth of tissue, 
abortive flowers and consequently little seed. 
Many seed crops take fourteen to fifteen 
months from the sowing until harvest—for 
instance, cabbage, cauliflower, beet, pars¬ 
nip, carrots, salsify, celery, onion, parsley, 
and others, all have to be sown during 
spring months, April and May, and do not 
produce their seed until the second July or 
August following. All these vegetables 
perfect for domestic purposes being devel¬ 
oped the autumn of the year in which they 
are sown, but the genera being of biennial 
forms they have to be carried over to obey 
nature’s law—thus the seed farmer is, we 
say, twice a cultivator and subject to ex¬ 
tended injurious influences which do not 
attach to market gardening. 
Under these conditions the reader will 
perceive that seed farming cannot every 
year be a success. There is a certainty of 
some influences being detrimental to some 
crops, some being better developed by 
moisture, some by moderate heat, others 
by tropical sun. In no location can all 
crops be grown equally well. As a farmer 
well knows that certain parts of his farm 
are better suited for certain crops than 
others, so the seed grower knows that dif¬ 
ferent counties in different States have 
their particular advantages. 
The seed grower, wherever he be found, 
will be recognized among the more advanced 
farmers of his section. To be successful he 
must have made many steps forward, he 
must have best land, implements, and 
barns, he must spend money freely for 
fertilizers and wages, he must be a student 
of nature and a good administrator, for his 
plans must be laid further ahead than those 
of any ordinary farmer, and further tharc 
most merchants. 
Within the past twenty years seed farm¬ 
ing in the United States has taken an 
extraordinary growth, for before that tim& 
seed farmers could almost be counted on 
the fingers—now specialists in the seed 
production are found everywhere in tha 
East and West. 
Discriminating planters demand Amer¬ 
ican grown seeds—they have been too often 
deceived in the trash shipped from Europe. 
They know from experience that European 
seeds cannot be relied upon to be good in 
quality or vitality as American; they know~ 
that they are ripened in a climate of much 
moisture, and consequently do not possess 
such powers of germination as ours, and 
they know that the American seed grower 
as a man is, in intelligence, observation 
and tact, so far ahead of the peasant cul¬ 
tivators of Europe, as to leave no room for 
comparison as to the results of his labors. 
The European, however, working at thirty 
or forty cents per day, produces seeds 
which in the eyes of some merchants have 
the merit of being cheap, and accordingly 
large quantities are brought to this country 
and sold by dealers who masquerade as 
American merchants; they always forget 
however, to tell their customers the origin 
of their stocks. 
To a market gardener the quality of 
seed he buys is of the utmost importance. 
The stock from which they are grown 
must be of acclimatized habit, must be 
judiciously selected of best individual types* 
thoroughly culled of all sorts of root, leaf 
or seed, properly harvested to insure the 
highest percentage of germination, and 
properly stored and labeled to guard against 
subsequent error in nomenclature—all these 
and others, are of vital necessity, as the 
trucker cannot afford to plant, manure and 
cultivate crops which, if bad, only prove 
bad after months of patient labor and large 
expense. 
Native American grown seeds unques¬ 
tionably do best under our American sun— 
foreign stocks do not bear our tropical 
heat. Under these circumstances the most 
satisfactory way is to buy American grown 
seed, and to get it from the producers— 
those who can say themselves that they 
grew the stocks they have for sale.— Gar¬ 
dener's Monthly. 
