Any reliable seed house can be depended upon for good seeds; but even so, there is a great risk in seeds. A seed may to all appearances be all right and yet not have within it vitality enough, or power, to produce a hardy plant.
If you save seed from your own plants you
are able to choose carefully. Suppose you are saving seed of aster plants. What
blossoms shall you decide upon? Now it is not the blossom only which you must
consider, but the entire plant. Why? Because a weak, straggly plant may produce
one fine blossom. Looking at that one blossom so really beautiful you think of the numberless
equally lovely plants you are going to have from the seeds. But just as likely
as not the seeds will produce plants like the parent plant.
So in seed selection the entire
plant is to be considered. Is it sturdy, strong, well shaped and symmetrical;
does it have a goodly number of fine blossoms? These are questions to ask in
seed selection.
If you should happen to have the
opportunity to visit a seeds man�s garden, you will see here and there a blossom
with a string tied around it. These are blossoms chosen for seed. If you look
at the whole plant with care you will be able to see the points which the
gardener held in mind when he did his work of selection.
In seed selection size is
another point to hold in mind. Now we know no way of telling anything about the
plants from which this special collection of seeds came. So we must give our
entire thought to the seeds themselves. It is quite evident that there is some
choice; some are much larger than the others; some far plumper, too. By all
means choose the largest and fullest seed. The reason is this: When you break
open a bean and this is very evident, too, in the peanut you see what appears
to be a little plant. So it is. Under just the right conditions for development
this 'little chap' grows into the bean plant you know so well.
This little plant must depend for
its early growth on the nourishment stored up in the two halves of the bean
seed. For this purpose the food is stored. Beans are not full of food and
goodness for you and me to eat, but for the little baby bean plant to feed
upon. And so if we choose a large seed, we have chosen a greater amount of food
for the plantlet. This little plantlet feeds upon this stored food until its
roots are prepared to do their work. So if the seed is small and thin, the
first food supply insufficient, there is a possibility of losing the little
plant.
You may care to know the name of
this pantry of food. It is called a cotyledon if there is but one portion, cotyledons
if two. Thus we are aided in the classification of plants. A few plants that
bear cones like the pines have several cotyledons. But most plants have either
one or two cotyledons.
From large seeds come the
strongest plantlets. That is the reason why it is better and safer to choose
the large seed. It is the same case exactly as that of weak children.
There is often another trouble in
seeds that we buy. The trouble is impurity. Seeds are sometimes mixed with
other seeds so like them in appearance that it is impossible to detect the
fraud. Pretty poor business, is it not? The seeds may be unclean. Bits of
foreign matter in with large seed are very easy to discover. One can merely
pick the seed over and make it clean. By clean is meant freedom from foreign
matter. But if small seed are unclean, it is very difficult, well nigh
impossible, to make them clean.
The third thing to look out for
in seed is viability. We know from our testing�s that seeds which look to the
eye to be all right may not develop at all. There are reasons. Seeds may have
been picked before they were ripe or mature; they may have been frozen; and
they may be too old. Seeds retain their viability or germ developing power, a
given number of years and are then useless. There is a viability limit in years
which differs for different seeds.
From the test of seeds we find
out the germination percentage of seeds. Now if this percentage is low, don't
waste time planting such seed unless it is small seed. Immediately you question
that statement. Why does the size of the seed make a difference? This is the
reason. When small seed is planted it is usually sown in drills. Most amateurs
sprinkle the seed in very thickly. So a great quantity of seed is planted. And
enough seed germinates and comes up from such close planting. So quantity makes
up for quality.
But take the case of large seed,
like corn for example. Corn is planted just so far apart and a few seeds in a
place. With such a method of planting the matter of per cent, of germination is
most important indeed.
Small seeds that germinate at
fifty per cent. May be used but this is too low a per cent. For the large seed.
Suppose we test beans. The percentage is seventy. If low-vitality seeds were
planted, we could not be absolutely certain of the seventy per cent coming up.
But if the seeds are lettuce go ahead with the planting.
Article by: Clem C. Benton, Jr.
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