GROWING SEED CROPS The requisities for growing farm seed of the best quality are, (1) a field free of weed seeds or plants ; (2) the use of pure stock seed of desira ble strain ; (3) so to harvest the crop as to secure a clean, bright sample of high vitality ; (4) the careful use of machines for threshing and cleaning the seed. The way the machines are used is quite as important as their structure. Often one person will secure a poor sample of seed when another, by a wiser use of the same machines, will get an extra-fine sample from a similar lot of seed.
The business of growing seed crops on the farm may be considered under three general divisions, according to the direct purposes for which the seeds are grown : (1) The growing of seeds, usu ally of cereal and forage crops, to be sold on the market by sample, as are other farm crops ; (2) the growing of seeds, chiefly of garden vegeta bles, on contract with seedsmen ; (3) the grow ing and breeding of improved strains of seeds to be used on the farm, with the sale, perhaps, of the surplus.
(1) Growing cereal and forage-crap seeds for the general market.
The crops grown specifically for seed in the past have been chiefly the grasses and clovers, the only special effort being to secure pure seed unmixed with weed seeds ; but of recent years there has been increased attention to growing seed not only of grasses and clover but of cereals, corn and other crops of selected strains that are adapted to spe cial soils and uses. Certain sections are especially adapted to the growing of certain kinds of seeds. For example, millet seed can be grown best in the southern states, clover and wheat in more northern sections, and field corn in the central states.
The methods vary with the kinds of seed and the places where they are grown. Usually timothy is cut, bound into bundles, cured, and then threshed, being cleaned in ordinary farm mills with special screens. Orchard-grass is harvested in much the same way. Kentucky blue-grass is harvested by strippers, which strip the seed from the standing stalks. The gathered seed is allowed to cure in windrows, on hard earth floors or in open sheds, and is there threshed and cleaned. Clover is gen
erally cut with the mower, allowed to cure in windrows or bunches in the field, and is then threshed in special machines or hullers. With the exception of the stripper or comber used in gather ing blue-grass, red-top and a few other kinds, and possibly of some fingers to be attached to the cut ting-bars of mowing machines for cutting clover and peas, no special machines are necessary. Spe cially constructed machines for hulling clover are desirable, but in sections where clover seed can be grown profitably, threshers with such machines usually move from farm to farm. The final clean ing for market is done by farm mills, of which there are many forms that do good work.
(2) Growing vegetable seed crops, on contract.
To many farmers, seed-growing for a widely advertised firm is more attractive than growing ordinary farm crops ; and a seed crop which can be sold only to the contractor and cannot be used or frittered away has advantages for one who rents on "crop-share rental," so that such contracts are eagerly sought, with the exception of biennial plants, as onions, which are usually grown on spe cial seed farms. Seedsmen secure most of their stock of vegetable seed by contracting with farm ers to plant a certain area and deliver the entire seed product at an agreed price. The seedsman furnishes the stock seed, the farmer only under taking to grow and harvest the crop so as to secure a good clean sample, the seedsman being responsible for the quality of the stock. Although a single seedsman, but one of the largest of the more than five hundred in the country, annually contracts with farmers for the product of 20,000 to 30,000 acres of vegetable seed crops, yet a very small proportion of the farmers of the country can easily produce all the seed needed, and a slight over-production results in a surplus and a conse quent reduction in the contract prices that seeds men are willing to offer, so that generally a seed crop is not especially profitable.