Nome. - 19 
better dairy critic, in an article in the Cowntry Gentleman of Novem- 
ber 1, 1883, says: ‘‘ The valuable dairy experiments conducted at the 
New York Agricultural Experiment Station during January and Feb- 
ruary, 1883, indicate the importance of a careful study of the effects 
of food upon the churning quality of milk ; they show a much greater 
variation between the actual fat in the milk and the butter obtained, 
as the results of differences in food, than has been heretofore recog- 
nized,” and in giving the results of the Houghton Farm studies, he 
not only verifies our conclusions, but adds very much information of 
great value to the dairyman, gained from a herd under experimental 
as well as normal conditions. Indeed, Professor Alvord has proven 
not only a capable observer, but an excellent generalizer, and has 
added available knowledge through his this year’s experiments for the 
consideration of dairymen, and fortunately the work of the private 
station has been in a line with that conducted by the public station. 
The subject of the germination of seeds is an important one, not 
only in its relation to the farmer, but as well to the seedsman, The 
seedsman occupies a position of great importance to the progressive 
farmer and is deserving of appreciation rather than abuse. Without 
this gathering together of varieties from nearly every source of supply, 
this constant search after new things and improved varieties, this con- 
stant effort after reliability, and this constant maintenance of large 
stock, our agriculture would perforce become hampered, from the 
inability of the ‘grower to secure the benefits of advance made by 
others. The select body of men, whose business is the improvement 
of seed and the originating of new varieties, would become discouraged 
through the expense in distributing their produce at a price which 
would justify the making of their specialty into a business. Seed 
would lose purity through the being grown in small patches, and the 
only means of maintaining many kinds in a pure state, that of grow- 
ing seed of like kinds in large fields whereby risks from hybridization 
are diminished, would be unavailable. For instance, we may evidence 
the cabbage, a crop perhaps as dependent upon the purity of the seed 
for its successful growing as any plant in general use. ‘The flowers 
of this plant are adapted for cross-fertilization as well as for self- 
fertilization, It is a well-known fact that varieties are crossed so 
largely by insects that it becomes impossible to raise pure seed in the 
same garden where more than one kind are in flower at the same time. 
It is also abundantly proven that the produce from seed which are 
self-fertilized is very inferior to the produce from seed fertilized with 
pollen from another plant of the same variety. It is evident that 
where large fields of cabbage are grown for seed, insects will be con- 
tinually at work conveying pollen from plant to plant, and thus 
furnish absolute provision in the vast majority of cases against self- 
fertilization, and from the preponderance of the one variety we have 
a great safeguard against the introduction of pollen from other 
varieties. This presentation of abundautly verified facts clearly shows 
that the seed-grower upon a very small scale cannot produce seeds as 
valuable to the consumer as can the seed-grower upon a large scale, 
and it is only through the business of the seedsmen that the large 
grower, the grower of the best seed, can be encouraged. 
The seedsman obtains his seed from many sources of supply, and it 
