How To Plant Seeds :

Any reliable seed house can be depended upon good seeds; but even so, te is a great risk in seeds. A seed may to all appearances be all right and yet not h within it vital enough, or power, to produce a hardy plant.

If you s seed from your own plants you are able to cho carefully. Supp you are sav seed of aster plants. W bloss shall you decide upon? Now it is not the blos only which you must consider, but the ere plant. Why? Because a weak, straggly plant may produce one fine blos. Look at t one blos so really beautiful you think of the numberless equally lovely plants you are go to h from the seeds. But just as likely as not the seeds will produce plants like the parent plant.

So in seed selecn the ere plant is to be considd. Is it sturdy, strong, well shaped and symmetrical; does it h a goodly number of fine bloss? These are quesns to ask in seed selecn. If you should happen to h the opportun to visit a seedsman's garden, you will see e and te a blos with a str tied around it. These are bloss chn 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 work of selecn.

In seed selecn size is anot point to hold in mind. Now we know no way of tell anyth about the plants from which t special collecn of seeds came. So we must give our ere thought to the seeds themselves. It is quite evident t te is e choice; e are much larger than the ots; e far plumper, too. By all ms cho the largest and fullest seed. The reason is t: When you break open a b and t is very evident, too, in the put you see w appears to be a little plant. So it is. Under just the right condins development t 'little chap' grows into the b plant you know so well.

T little plant must depend its early growth on the nourishment stored up in the two halves of the b seed. For t purp the food is stored. Bs are not full of food and goodness you and me to eat, but the little baby b plant to feed upon. And so if we cho a large seed, we h chn a greater amount of food the plantlet. T little plantlet feeds upon t stored food ul its roots are prepared to do their work. So if the seed is small and thin, the first food supply insufficient, te is a possibil of los the little plant. You may care to know the name of t pantry of food. It is called a cotyledon if te is but one porn, cotyledons if two. Thus we are aided in the classifican of plants. A few plants t bear cones like the pines h several cotyledons. But most plants h eit one or two cotyledons.

From large seeds come the strongest plantlets. T is the reason why it is better and safer to cho the large seed. It is the same case exactly as t of weak children. Te is often anot trouble in seeds t we buy. The trouble is impur. Seeds are etimes mixed with ot seeds so like them in appearance t it is impossible to detect the fraud. Pretty poor business, is it not? The seeds may be uncl. Bits of eign matter in with large seed are very easy to discover. One can mly pick the seed over and make it cl. By cl is mt freedom from eign matter. But if small seed are uncl, it is very difficult, well nigh impossible, to make them cl.

The third th to look out in seed is viabil. We know from our tests t seeds which look to the eye to be all right may not develop at all. Te are reasons. Seeds may h been picked bee they w ripe or mature; they may h been frozen; and they may be too old. Seeds retain their viabil or germ develop power, a given number of years and are then useless. Te is a viabil limit in years which differs diffnt seeds.

From the test of seeds we find out the germinan percentage of seeds. Now if t percentage is low, don't waste time plant such seed unless it be small seed. Immediately you quesn t statement. Why does the size of the seed make a diffnce? T 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 quant of seed is planted. And enough seed germinates and comes up from such cl plant. So quant makes up qual.

But take the case of large seed, like corn example. Corn is planted just so far apart and a few seeds in a place. With such a method of plant the matter of per cent, of germinan is most important indeed.

Small seeds t germinate at fifty per cent. may be used but t is too low a per cent. the large seed. Supp we test bs. The percentage is seventy. If low-vital seeds w planted, we could not be absolutely certain of the seventy per cent com up. But if the seeds are lettuce go ahead with the plant.