HABERLANDT'S FIGURES OF LONGEVITY (Quoted in Johnson's "How Crops Grow"). Percentage of seeds that germinated in 1861 from the years Experience and experiment have determined certain seed standards. The following standards of purity and germination in seeds are recommended by the Department of Agriculture : " The term purity, the percentage of which is reckoned by weight, denotes freedom from foreign matter, such as chaff, dirt, or seeds of other plants, but it has no reference to the genuineness of the variety, which is called by seedsmen purity of stock. The percentage of germination is reckoned by count from a sample freed from foreign matter, a seed being considered as having germinated when the rootlet, or radicle, has pushed through the seed-coat. It is not to be understood from these standards that the real value of a quantity of seed is dependent wholly upon the number of pure germinable seeds it contains. The ancestry of the seed and its trueness to type are factors of mart' importance in determining seed value, especially in the case of vegetables. These points, however, are very difficult, if not impossi ble, to determine at the time of purchase, while the purity and germi nation are easily ascertained and are very essential points. The
germination standards are based upon tests conducted between moist blotters in a germinating chamber. Such tests usually give a little higher result than those made in soil. For the best results in blotter tests of lettuce and beets the seed should first be soaked in water for from four to six hours." The following table showing percentages of the purity and the germination of leading agricultural seeds of high grade is prepared rig. 191. Millet's seed-sower. for this book by J. W. T. Dove], of the Seed Laboratory of the United States Department of Agriculture. These figures represent what may be considered a high average for such seeds, but not the maximum, even of commercial seeds. While the figures are only tentative and subject to change, it should be stated that they are the result of all the information available at the present time, including nearly fifty thousand germination tests conducted in the soed laboratory of the Department of Agriculture.