. Botany for agricultural students. Plants. LONGEVITY 73 parts of the United States have shown that seeds do not hve as long in the warm moist air of the Southern states as they do in the cool dry air of the Northern states. In the following table compiled from various sources is given the time beyond which it is not advisable to use the seeds men- tioned unless the contrary is shown by germinative tests. Corn Wheat Oats Barley Rye Buckwheat Beans (common) 4 to 5 Peas 4 to 5 Clovers 2 to 3 AKaKa 3 to 4 Onion 1 Years. 2 2 2 2 2 2 Years. Mustard 3 to 4 Cabbage Turnips Swede Pumpkin Melon (musk).
. Botany for agricultural students. Plants. LONGEVITY 73 parts of the United States have shown that seeds do not hve as long in the warm moist air of the Southern states as they do in the cool dry air of the Northern states. In the following table compiled from various sources is given the time beyond which it is not advisable to use the seeds men- tioned unless the contrary is shown by germinative tests. Corn Wheat Oats Barley Rye Buckwheat Beans (common) 4 to 5 Peas 4 to 5 Clovers 2 to 3 AKaKa 3 to 4 Onion 1 Years. 2 2 2 2 2 2 Years. Mustard 3 to 4 Cabbage Turnips Swede Pumpkin Melon (musk). Melon (water) Squash Tomato Timothy Celery 3 to 4 3 to 4 3 to 4 5 5 5 3 6 lto2 1. In some cases perfect seeds well stored may have more than double the longevity given in the above table. Thus Sturtevant obtained 100 per cent germination of various varieties of Corn after being stored 5 years. Tomato seeds 14 years old have been known to give a high percentage of germination. On the other hand, using the same seeds as an example, both Corn and Tomato seeds are sometimes unfit for use when only 1 year of age. These varying results em- phasize the importance of testing the germinative power of seeds before use. The variation in the longevity of the seeds of a given lot is obvious when the percentages of germination for different periods of storage are compared. The decrease in the percentage of germination as the length of the storage period in- creases shows that some seeds die earl;y and others later until finally all are dead. In the following table are given the results of an experiment to determine the rate at which vitality is lost as indicated by the percentage of germination obtained in each of the 6 years of storage. Fig. 72.—^A cheap mag- nifier well adapted for use in analyzing seeds. The magnifier is set over the seeds, leaving the hands free to separate the seeds as one looks through the magnifier from Please note that these images are extracted from scann
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectplants, bookyear1919
