Clara Lee Willhite, and her Blue Ribbon Winner Certified Black Diamond Watermelons 
See color photograph on front cover 
1 lb. bags only (SPECIAL STOCK BLUE RIBBON WINNER) $2.75, plus postage 
After eight years of corresponding with depart- 
ment heads at Texas A & M in regards to Certifica- 
tion of watermelon seed I finally realized my first 
victory when a meeting was held in January 1950 
at College Station, with representatives from the 
Texas Department of Agriculture. As a result of 
this meeting, the preliminary Certification stand- 
ards were drawn up, for recommendation before 
the State Seed and Plant Board. These proposed 
standards were formally adopted in July 1950. In 
the same month some fifteen representatives of in- 
terested groups visited the Texas production fields 
of my farms to make the necessary rigid inspec- 
tions to determine eligibility of my strain of Black 
Diamond for registration and Certification in terms 
of the newly adopted standards. Results of the 
inspecion were favorable and my strain was Reg- 
istered in August 1950. Thus Certification of Texas 
Black Diamond watermelon seed was developed 
and pioneered by myself individually whose firm 
has been engaged in production of quality water- 
melon seed for 33 years and is one of the largest 
growers of watermelon seed in the world. Will- 
hite’s melon seed are shipped in large quantities 
from coast to coast as well as world-wide. My 
modern seed cleaning plant especially equipped 
to clean and grade watermelon seed, is the only 
one of its kind in Texas. It removes the light im- 
mature seed which are not detectable with the eye 
and which are inferior seed that lower germination. 
I also have special equipment for treating all seed 
before it is shipped, which saves you lots of time 
and expense trying to treat them by hand. 
"OUR CUSTOMERS" 
Our customers are a part of our business, and 
each one is doing us a favor by bringing us his 
“Good Pure Seed from Grower to Grower’ 
wants and giving us the opportunity to serve him 
so that we both may profit. 
“We Cover the Globe” 29 
