. Agriculture for beginners. seeds, although they know thatseeds decrease in value with age. Sometimes, however, to yS AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS cloak dishonesty they mix some new seeds with the old,or bleach old and yellow seeds in order to make themresemble fresh, new seed. It is important, therefore, that all seeds bought of dealersshould be thoroughly examined and tested ; for if seeds donot grow, we not only pay for that which is useless, but weare also in great danger of producing so few plants in ourfield that we shall not get full use of the land, and maythus suffer a more serious loss
. Agriculture for beginners. seeds, although they know thatseeds decrease in value with age. Sometimes, however, to yS AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS cloak dishonesty they mix some new seeds with the old,or bleach old and yellow seeds in order to make themresemble fresh, new seed. It is important, therefore, that all seeds bought of dealersshould be thoroughly examined and tested ; for if seeds donot grow, we not only pay for that which is useless, but weare also in great danger of producing so few plants in ourfield that we shall not get full use of the land, and maythus suffer a more serious loss than merely paying for afew dead seeds. To test the vitality of seeds, plant one hundred seedsin a pot of earth or in damp sand, or place between moistpieces of flannel, and take care to keep them moist andwarm. Count those that germinate and thus determinethe percentage of vitality. Germinating between flannel ismuch quicker than planting in earth. Care should be usedto keep mice away from germinating seeds. (See Fig. 6i.). A B Fig. 6i. A Seed GerminatorConsisting of two soup plates, some sand, and a piece of cloth Sometimes the appearance of a package will indicatewhether the seed has been kept in stock a long is, however, much more difficult to find out whether theseeds are pure. You can of course easily distinguish seedsthat differ much from the seeds you wish to plant, but often THE PLANT 79 certain weed seeds are so nearly like certain crop seedsthat the weed seeds are not easily recognized by the , for example, the dodder or love vine, which sooften ruins the clovercrop, has seeds closelyresembling cloverseeds. The chess, orcheat, has seeds sonearly like oats that only a close observer 1 11 I can tell them , if you watchthe seeds that you buyand study the appear-ance of crop seeds,you may become veryexpert in recognizingseeds that have noplace in your planting. I know of oneinstance where a seeddealer intentionallyallowed an impurity of30 pe
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