Abstract

What is it that every gardener or farmer would most desire? The ready answer to this question will doubtless be one word 'success'. Success in good farming or gardening will mean the production of the largest, the handsomest, the healthiest and the most vigorously growing plants yielding the maximum produce which will give an abundant return for the labour and expense of running a farm or a garden. For, 'a product properly produced is already more than half marketed'. The first and the foremost criterion is the purity of the seed for its species and the strain or variety the farmer which intends to grow. For example, if it is to be Co: Combodia, he must make sure that it is Co, Cambodia and nothing else, for it is a very common thing to find inferior cotton seeds like those of Pulichai mixed up with this. The next point to be considered is that the seed should be free from other crop seeds. A sample of cotton may con- tain seeds of tenai. A third point to be noted is it should be free of weed seeds and in this connection no amount of emphasis can be laid on its free- dom from seeds of weeds of a parasitio nature such as those of Striga, Orobanche, Cuscuta, etc. Another point for consideration is that the seed sample should be free from mechanical impurities such as mud, bracts, bracteoles, etc. The most important point, however, is that every seed sown should sprout and grow into a healthy plant. There should be absolutely no gaps in the field. Success in farming, therefore, centres to a great extent round the seed. The farmer must see that the seeds he consigns to earth are endowed with a maximum power of life. If one wants a hundred per cent result one must plant seeds that rate 100 in the scale of life in a soil that rates 100 in the scale of fertility.

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