SEEDING, PLANTING AND YIELDS 137 Storing of' seeds.
The first requisite to the keeping of seeds is to have them well grown, from strong and healthy parents. The second requisite is to have them well cured, or free from mold and damp. Usually it is best to thresh before storing, for there is less danger from damp and from vermin, and the seeds occupy less space. The room should be dry and devoid of great extremes in temperature. Very low temperature is less inimical than very high temperature. Moist seeds are less able to withstand extremes of temperature than dry seeds. Ordinary winter temperatures in a secure loft are harmless. In large quantities seeds are usually best stored in bags. (Fig. 189.) In all cases, it is well to keep the bags or boxes tied or shut, to avoid currents of air and thereby avoid either too much dampness or too great drying, and to exclude vermin. Most nests of drawers allow runways for mice. Fig. 190 illustrates poor and good construction. Peas and beans and maize are specially liable to in jury by weevils when in storage. Bisulfid of carbon may be poured into the receptacle on the seeds. It quickly volatilizes and destroys all animal life if the receptacle is immediately closed tight. A tea spoonful is sufficient for eight or ten quarts of seed in a very tight box or drawer. Carbon bisulfid is very inflammable and care should be exercised to avoid the danger of an explosion. It should never be handled freely in rooms containing fires of any kind. It is a thin liquid, volatilizing at low temperatures ; therefore the receptacles containing it should be tightly sealed. Hydrocyanic acid gas (made by pouring sulfuric acid on pieces of cyanide of potassium) may be used to destroy insects when they infest whole rooms or buildings. This gas is exceedingly poisonous, however, and it should be used only by those who have had experience. (See page 45.) Planting calendar.
In the great expanse of North America, it is impos sible to give in any brief space a very useful list of dates for the planting of the various field crops.
The subject is one that demands careful and pro longed study, however. It needs to be approached from the point of view of phenology, and to be related to farm-practice questions. (See discussion of Phenol ogy on pages 532 and 533, Volume I.) To be of much service, such records should be averages of several years. The farmer, long accustomed to a locality, depends less on the calendar than on the general state of the weather and the " signs" of the season. It is an old custom to plant corn when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear. In order to systematize their business and to establish a fixed point to which men may work, some large planters set a formal date on which they plant certain crops year after year. The season, however, properly determines the date of planting. The forwardness of grass and trees, the condition of the soil, the type of crop succession, all indicate season of planting. As a suggestion to the uninstructed planter, the average or usual dates of planting have been secured from careful persons in several parts of the country, and these dates are given on the following pages for what they may be worth to the reader. These records will be suggestive to the beginner, to whom any fixed points or standards, of whatever kind, are valuable in enabling him to plan his work. As he becomes expe rienced, the fixed and formal epochs will have less significance to him. In a restricted region, it is pos sible to give advice by months. Once books called "calendars" were popular, particularly with gar deners; but these are inapplicable to continental areas.
Fig. 206. A corn-planter.
Fig. 207. Riding cotton- and corn-planter.
Fig. 208. A sulky lister, for planting corn.