The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-07

duces a little more than 100000 pounds of seed per annum, and from S,O0O,OOO to 10,0O0,000 pounds are sold yearly in the United States, though still much that is used for gardening Is imported. The caulifower seed is the most expensive of all the vegeta- bles, as it is the most difficult to ob- tain. Its wholesale price is s13 pound. Next to this in value are the high grade varieties of beans, which cost $L50 and $3 a pound.
 Central Michigan and Western New York produce almost all the bean seed used in this country One locality in Michigan produces seventy-fve thou sand bushels yearly, and the New York output doubles that number. Po- tatoes and corn are sold so extensively that no estimate can be made of the amount produced each year. Two mil- lion pounds of turnip seed goes into American soil every season, but most of it is imported from England. One million pounds of radish seed are planted here, one-tenth of which is raised in California, and the rest in Europe Of the million pounds of seed onions which the annual crop demands California yields seven hundred thou sand pounds, and more than half the million pounds of cabbage seed used in our crops is grown in our own soil.
 When it is remembered that little five cent package of cabbage seed will make two hundred plants, too many for a single garden, and that each pound will supply fifty gardens, the enormity of those figures will be realized. Of course, many of the seed which are sold do not produce vegetables, as they are prevented by insects, impuri- ties of soil and climatic hardships, but if every seed sent out by the seed in- dustry of America fulfilled its mission every man, woman and child in the United States could have at least one square meal a day, regardless of the Beef Trust.
 Corn growing for seed purposes has made great strides in this country, and more of it is sold than any other kind. An instance of Mother Earth's kind- ness to the corn growers is shown in the experience of prominent seed grower in Ohio Thirty-fve years ago he had one acre of land and $5. He invested the $5 in seed corn. His profit for his first years work was only SIS, but now he produces yearly 150,000 bushels of corn, and has become inde- pendently rich. John Rankin, a Mis- souri farmer, plants 12,000 acres of corn at tino, using as much corn for 1 his seed as an eastern farmer would l harvest in one season. He sends out 150 ploughs at a time to his fields, and ships his corn in the fall by the train load, instead of the carload. Not long ago a single ear of prize corn, of the Reid Yellow Dent variety, was sold al auction at the Iowa State college for S150. This was at the rate of $S,S50 a bushel, which is the worlds highest price for seed corn.
 | Almost all the choice kinds of toma- toes are the result of the patience of A. w. Livingstone who discovered ir a bed of ordinary tomatoes one which was susceptible of treatment to en- large it and enrich its flavor. He say ed the seed of this accidental tomato and year after year replanted tht seeds obtained from the children and grandchildren of his original find, un- til it is difficult to find in ones salad a tomato not descended from this dis. I covery of Mir. Livingstone.
 Flowers furnish equally as interest. ing instances. One of the most nota' | ble seed achievements of recent years is the work of the Rev. w. Hichks the secretary of the Royal Horticul
 tural society in England, who produc
 ed the Shirley poppy from bed O
 common field peoples. In patch O
 the latter in his garden he saw ont
 edged with white. He marked it, ob
 tained it's seed and planted it the fol Towing year. The edge of white ha( grown deeper, and after many yeari of experimenting he had bed of pop
 pies whose white edge had worked int the center, making the petals pal, pink, and in one plant pure white
 After several years more he turned
 the black center a pale yellow, and nov
 the ghostly Shirley poppy stands as
 monument to his infinite patience an'
 care.
 But seeds are not always so care
 fully propagated. Every element il
 nature has had hand in it, at on ] ltime or another, and strange flower
 are even now growing. on our coast
 as a result of long journey on tn
 breast of the gulf stream or gallan
 race with the north wind. The hap hazard career of the thistledowr ) which is renown by any passin , breeze, has been the theme for man : poet. Birds have carried seeds un digested in their stomachs for mile and miles, even into different states } Many little northern blossom has ap peared in the south with no possbl l explanation for it's presence but tha lit had been carried there by flock c . migrating birds, Frederic J, Haski 5 in New York Tribune
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