CHE REFERENCE LIBRARY - Pole Shift Survival Information

Once a matter of home-growing and supply, the trade in
seeds and bulbs has come to be a business of sufficient volume
in the Ilnited States to wa.rrant sepa.rate statement in the
Census. The total value of flower and vegetable seeds produced
in 1909 was upwards of 81,4OQ,OOO, as compared with
W(i,WO ten Years earlier ; of cloyer seed, $Xi,!)OO,OOO in round
numbers as aiainst $5,X9,000 ; all grass seed, $Xi, 137,000 a.nd
PS,22S,OOO. These figures represent the va-11 ue of the seed
crops themselves, but they are at the same time an indication
of the vast agricultural croppagc they supply with seed and of
the notable increa,se it) general crop-growing. Aside from
t hese reported cst i ma t cs, the aggregate of seeds grown and
saved in the home garden atd in the field for home use would
uncloilbt.ecll~- sllrpri.-;t 11.‘; if it c~~Illt-1 be kt~own.
The increasing total ~aluc of sccrls probably does not indicate
alone an increase in produr*tion. Seeds are intrinsically
more va.luable deca,de by decwde b~aust more carefully grown
and bred. Formerl?* plant-breeding n-as tiiost~ly a question
of producing new kinds or varieties ; its significance now lies
more in the bettering of existing varieties by- means of careful
and rational selection, whereby yield is increased, as well as
quality and uniformity of stand. The importancbe of seedbreeding
is now so well accepted in the public mind that the
discriminating planter of staple crops no longer asks merely
f or “seeds” any more than the stock-raiser asks merely for
“ cows” ; the quality of the seeds is as importan~t to the corngr-ower
as is the quality of the cows to the dairyman. Nany
persons now make a particularity of breeding seeds of staple
crops with care and skill ; this business will incereasc in volume
and importance.
So essential is seed production to the welfare of the people
that governments have enacted laws for protection against