The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1905-03-10
Main Points in the Lectures De-
Iivered BY Scientists.
Farmers Should Have the Best
of Own Product.
They Must Not Experiment With
Untried Cereal.

Farmers who were not able to be
present to hear Profs. c. b. Bull and
Andrew Boss of the Minnesota State
Agricultural school, on the day when
the special seed train went through the
city on the Milwaukee line, would do
well to note carefully the main points
in the lectures of the two agricultural
scientists.
Professor Bull covered three points.
First, the farmer should test all seeds to
be planted, of whatever kind, for ger
mination. Count out a hundred seeds
of the kind that are TO be tested Spread
the seeds on a moist flannel cloth that
has been placed on a plate. Cover with
another moist cloth and cover the whole
with plate Place the outfit in mod
eratelv warm room and leave for two or
three days. Examine carefully and if
the cloths become dry, moisten the upper
one As soon as the seeds begin to
sprout, remove those aprouted each day
and count. After six to ten days the
sum of those removed will give the per
cent of seeds that will terminate and
the number remaining will give the per
cent of those that either will not ger
inmate or are too slow about germinat'
ing. If eighty-fve seeds sprout, then
eighty-five per cent of the seeds in the
whole quantity of the lot may be ex-
pected to sprout and grow satisfactor-
ily The farmer wants seeds that will
sprout rapidly and uniformly, seeds that
will grow at about the same rate, no
one starting far ahead of the others,
or far behind.
No less than eighty per cent of ger
mination is considered satisfactory for
wheat. Ninety per cent is good test.
4 lower test than this must be accept
ed for some seeds.
The second point that the professor
dwelt upon is this: Always obtain the
heaviest seed obtainable. When the seed
begins to sprout, the plant depends for
its nour:shment upon the food materials
stored up in the grain. The amount
of food material in the grain is of
great Importance. The larger the
amount, the better fed and stronger
the Seeding is likely to be and the bet
ter able it will be to live through any
bad conditions of the soil or the wea-
Their.
The professors third point was:
Where there is the slightest doubt
about smut being present, treat the
grain with formaldehyde as a preventa-
tive. One pound of formaldehyde should
be dissolved in fortyfve gallons of
water The solution can be sprinkled
upon the grain as it is spread upon the
floor. Thorough shoveling of the grains
so that every grain is wet should fol-
low. The grain should then be allowed
to stand in piles for two hours. Sew
eral machines are on the market for APP
lying the liquid formaldehyde and some
them are perfectly satisfactory.
Professor Boss told the farmers that
they should be careful to have pedigreed
and acclimated seed. The seed should
have a worthy record of ancestry. 1t
should be adapted to the climate in
which it is planted.
Each farmer should keep the seed he
has and by careful selection seek TO i'm
prove it from year to year Too often
a farmer will discard his own time
tested seed and take up with some new
tangled variety that some agent has in
duced him to purchase at fancy price.
Very often he finds that the new sort
of seed is not adapted to the climate or
the soil of his farm and it runs out
on him, that is, it fails to reproduce as
it should.
Then again it may happen that the
farmer will not have any good seed
from his last years crop. Then it is
necessary for him to introduce a new
kind of seed. Sometimes it happens
that the seed that he introduces is bet
ter adapted to his soil than any seed
that has ever been grown there. He is
fortunate, when this proves to be the
case.
What is farmer to do who finds
himself with only very badly shrunken
seed to SOW for his next years crop and
does not wish to risk introducing new
seed upon his farm2 If the badly
shrunken seed has a good pedigree be-
hind it, if its ancestry is good, then
something should be done to redeem and
improve it. First the grain should be
cleaned and then should be run through
seeder, by which means the grain will
be SO spread out upon the floor that the
largest, plumpest and heaviest kernels
will be scattered farthest from the ma