The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1905-10-15
Saving or Buying Seeds.


cessful gardeners depend for the bulk
chase from a reliable seed firm than
on their own efforts in growing and
saving seeds. Professional seed grow
ers, who, in growing seeds on contract
for seedsmen, make a speciality of per-
hapS a single one, or at most a few
kinds of the standard seeds, can do
much better in the production of a
strictly A No. l seed of their kind
than a gardener who attempts to raise
miscellaneous lot of everything in
small quantities, writes T. Griener in
the Practical Farmer. I have always
found it most satisfactory to buy the
great majority of the standard kinds
as, for instance, carrot, beet, onion
cabbage, cauliflower, radish, kohl-rabi
etc.; and in the case of beans, melons
cucumbers, etc. This same course
seems almost unavoidable where more
than one variety of each of these are
grown in close proximity We cannot
afford to run the risk of using seed Ii
able to produce mongrels. Yet when
we make a specially of single vari
ETY. of beans, of sweet corn, of squash
of cucumber, of melon, of pepper, OF
tomato, ETC., we not only are in the
situation to save our own seed, but
we should do that. In such a case we
can be assured that the seed we save
is pure, provided, of course, that we
started with pure seed. Furthermore
we have it in our hands to make such
selection that that particular vari-
ETY. or strain will be kept at it's very
best, and in fact improved by selec-
ton, from year to year. A Canadian
gardener, in an eastern agricultural
weekly, gives some instructions on
how to save tomatoes for seed. He
says: Select the earliest fruit. Sc
lect large fruit. Select fruit of good
productive vines. Do not pick the
fruit until very ripe, not until five or
SIX days after all signs of green have
gone" All this hardly touches the
real essence, the vital points of the
question. l prefer to save what seed
| desire to use another year of the
standard early and the standard main
crop tomatoes. I plant Maule's Ear
Hest or Earliana all in a patch by
themselves, and I do the same thing
with the standard main crop, whether
this is Imperial, Stone, Matchless or
any one of the number of good sorts
for that purpose. When selecting
specimens for seed I do not look for
the earliest, nor the smoothest, nor
best-shaped specimen. | try to find the
best plants, plants which are healthy
and which set and ripen fruit earliest,
and the fruit of which averages best
idity and quality. I would rather use
defective or late specimen of that
vine for stock seed than an exception
ally early and fine specimen from a
plant the fruit of which is a shy
bearer. In saving seed from peppers
and elephants I would rather try to
pick for the plant that gives the best
average than for the best specimens
From the plants thus selected we are
quite safe, at least for time, to use
every mature specimen for seed. This
same principle holds good, believe,
with melons and all other vine plants,
and even with potatoes. The late Prof
Golf found that he could largely in
crease the yield of any variety of po-
tatoes by using the potatoes from the
most productive hills in a patch for
seed. Even the smallest tuber from
the most productive hill gave larger
yield than did the largest tuber taken
from the least productive hill in the
same patch where all the hills had
the same chance.
The advice to let the tomatoes get
fully matured before gathering them
for seed is good enough. Yet the
aforesaid Prof. Golf also discovered