THE ROMANCE OF SEEDS

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 21

THE ROMANCE OF SEEDS

ARISTOCRATS AMONG PLANTS. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. A VISIT TO SLATON’S, READING. (Fkojj Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, October 3. An unpretentious office front in the Market Place of Reading bears the name “Sutton and Sons.’’ The name, of course, is a household word amongst all who ever raised a. seed, so that some impressions of a visit to this vast establishment, which is responsible for much of the earth’s productiveness, may give seed-growers a greater interest in the precious grains they consign in their due seasons to the fruitful earth. It is an unpretentious office front, and it affords no evidence of the range of buildings that lies behind. Warehouses, order rooms, and offices cover seven acres of ground, .and as some of the buildings have four or five storeys the floorage space available for dealing with this world wide business may be realised. But it is not bulk and space that is so impressive. It is the care taken in testing and the scrupulous elimination of all but the best that gives the uninitiated a new respect for the little packets that find their way into the gardens of the rich and of the poor, and to the broad acres in every part of the world. When one is informed that the cost of producing one ounce of a particular strain of Calceolaria seed exceeds the value of 10 ounces of gold one feels that one’s education regarding the really precious things, of the world has been sadly neglected. My visit to the warehouses and the testing grounds was made with Mr R. M’Gillivrav (of the Agricultural Department, Christchurch), at the invitation of Mr Martin H. F. Sutton, and experts took ns in hand throughout the tour of inspection. It is generally known that the firm was founded in 1806, but it was not until the railways were built that the partners perceived their opportunity to increase their activity. They had already r A'ined a local reputation, and the new mea. 1 ’ of transportation enabled them to obtain a reputation throughout the Kingdom. In later years they extended their trade further afield, and to-day they supply nearly every part of the civilised world. AN ANCIENT VICEHow the firm gained the confidence of the public is an old slory, but not everybody knows it. In the early .part of last century it was the custom to adulterate seeds. Machines were made to sterilise cheap substitutes. Rape seed, for instance. cleverly killed, was mixed with the more expensive vegetable seeds. It was against this practice that the members of the firm sternly set their faces, at last the public, conscience was roused to such an extent that the Seeds Adulteration Act was passed. Testing became the rule of the firm, and now all packages sent out, whether bulky orders or small parcels of precious flower seed, have to pass their tests. With such an extensive mail order business it is natural that the office organisation should be of a very high standard. Perhaps the most impressive department connected with the clerical branch is the filing room. All orders are filed and kept for five years, for people have a habit of asking for what they had last year or the year before. Those in charge of the order files maintain that if there is no mistake in the name and address they can find the previous orders in thirty seconds Orders are kept alphabetically in small cardboard folios with the name printed on an easily read tag. In the large filing room there are three miles of shelves and 100,000 folios. In due course old orders gravitate into another chamber, and at a still later date they are cut up for packing. WHAT THE WORLD REQUIRES. In the Colonial Office one heard New Zealand place names spoken of with an easy familiarity. Long ago this department learned to give their customers what they asked for—a lesson that has not yet been learned thoroughly by every English business house. A large cabinet bore the names of every country in the Empire. Within were filed away those useful scraps of information which enables the firm to know what each country particularly requires. From time to time a representative visits various parts of the world to find out the needs of the people. Mr Noel Sutton, a younger member of the family, is going out to New Zealand in December. v It would take a great deal Of space to descrihe the system by which all the orders are dealt with. Needless to say. it requires a small army of clerks to carry out the daily routine. As many as 15.000 letters and parcels, for instance, are dealt with by the firm's post office during a day of the busy season. With automatic precision the orders pass through the various departments, and when the parcels return to the despatch office, where labels have already been prepared and the best route for the parcels worked out, the initials of every assistant who has been engaged in executing or checking the order, or packing, is attached to the order paper. , Thus, should a ccwnplaint be received in the course even of many months those, directly responsible for any mistake can readily be traced. WHERE THE SEED IS GROWN. Passengers bv the Great Western Railway passing the flaming acres of flowers and the plots of every variety of vegetable in the seed testing grounds often ge,t the impression that it is here that the seeds for distribution in Great Britain and for export are grown. Very few seeds are actually produced at Reading. Mother seed is sent out to contractors in all parts of the world, who, when the crops have ripened and been gathered in, return the seed to the firm. It is the duty of certain members of the firm to go abroad to the Continent and elsewhere and inspect these crops during the period of their growth and ripening. Immediately a consignment of seeds arrives samples are sent to the testing room, where a test is made for purity. It is interesting to look through the microscopes and see the great proportion of inert matter mixed with the seed before it is subjected to the cleaning processes of the establishment. To the naked eye there seems little to complain of, but the microscope tells a different tale. Passing through some of the stores we came to the 400-gallon tanks which, before many weeks are gone, will be filled with seeds and sent out to New Zealand. Beyond, in a well-lighted room, were men cleaning various small round vegetable seeds.

Cleaning processes vary according to the kind and shape of seed. These variegated kale were first being sieved by hand through meshes just large enough to permit a perfectly formed seed to pass. These, handful by handful, were placed upon a curved wooden spade with an abbreviated handle. A slight lilt caused the full rounded grains to run off the spade. Those grains which had been crushed refused to roll and remained on the spade. Thus were the goats separated from the sheep. The Ministry of Agriculture demands a certain percentage of purity, but Sutton’s in Brassica seeds place before themselves the ideal of perfection. It would have been difficult to find any ill-formed grain or a piece of dirt in the bushel of seed that had been dealt with. In answer to the question why machines were not used in this process it was stated that no machine had so far been found to accomplish what was required. It certainly seemed a tedious and slow process, but one recognised the satisfactory results. TESTING FOR GERMINATION. Having been put through this purifying process a sample is returned to the testing house. It is again examined for purity and probably found almost perfect in this respect. Twenty seeds are taken and placed between two pads of blotting paper. A wick of paper* leads to a tray of warm water, and this along with other samples to be similarly treated are placed in an electrically-heated cabinet. In three days’ time, or it may he five or more, the sample is examined. Fifteen grains may have germinated. The remaining five are allowed a longer period to show their fruitfulness. In another two or three days these five mav also have germinated. The test is duplicated, sometimes triplicated, and the results compared. If there are conflicting results the whole test is repeated. „ Records of each test are carefully entered in a special book, and if the percentage of germination is sufficiently high, the consignment of seeds from which the sample is taken is passed for commerce, if the iample fails in its test the whole Consignment is burnt. Different/ methods of incubation are adopted for different seeds. Some are sown on blotting paper, some in sterilised sand, some in darkness, some in the light. S|>me like a nigh temperature, some a low one. The Ministry of' Agrciulture demands a 70 per cent, standard of germination in Brassica seeds, but here again the firm sets itself a far higher standard, and if a crop falls below that standard it finds its way to the destructor. TRIAL CROPS. Having passed the test in the laboratory the crop is released for sale. But the firm has not yet done with it. A plot is prepared in the testing grounds and a sample of the crop is sown. Thus while the kale, the cabbages, or the turnips are being grown in a thousand different places on the surface of the globe, the plants from the same crop of seed are being watched by experts at Reading. Should complaints come from buyers concerning a certain seed the firm has an example of what has resulted from the same seed in their own grounds. But that is not the only purpose served. From the best plants the seeds are gathered, and they are sent out to the contractors for the following season. In due course the crops from these selected seeds are returned to Reading, piut through their tests, and so pass into commerce. Thus year by year there is the survival of the fittest and the elimination of all that is merely mediocre. There is something fascinating about the whole process. Changes are ever taking place. There is sufficient rapidity in the development of plant life to enable even a young man to watch the startling processes of evolution. What changes then must a man see who lias served the firm for 40 or 50 years. As is the ease in many of the well-known English firms, employees grow old in the service, and their children and grandchildren follow in their footsteps. THE ORDER ROOM. But to return to the warehouses. We passed from the seed clearing room to the vegetable seed order room. From floor to ceiling round the "walls of an immense hall are thousands of small cupboards. The floor space is coveredwith broad counters on which the orders are laid out and checked. Counters are utilised for cupboards as well. On the front board of each cupboard the name of the seed is printed, and tile order is alphabetical, just as it is in the catalogues. Thus when a purchaser works through his catalogue and makes out his orders he is unconsciously arranging each item in the most convenient way for those who attend to liis wants. In the rush of the season the hundreds of assistants work round and round the huge room. Buyers who have not set their orders down alphabetically are responsible for some of the assistants having to work out of harmony with their fellow-assistants. MUCH IN LITTLE. The Flower Seed Order Room is equally imposing, though not so large. The number of compartments containing the seed may be imagined when it is said that of asters alone there are more than 200 varieties. Sweet pods exceed 170 named varieties. Counters where precious seeds are dealt with are enclosed to prevent draughts, and no one is admitted when the orders are being executed. A sudden draught from an open door would scatter the contents of scores of packets. The quantity for the smallest packet of double begonia or saintpaulia is measured in a shallow spoon three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, yet the spoon would contain seeds sufficient to produce 200 plants. In both the vegetable and the flower room work was not at high pressure, and many of the assistants were employed in making bags for the next rush season. Work in the bulb room, however, was in full swing. For the execution of agricultural seed orders ample space is needed. The particular room employed for this purpose is 250 ft in length and 60ft wide, without a single column to obstruct the view from end to end. It was here in 1890 that King Edward, then Prince of Wales, presided over an historic banquet in connection with the installation of the Duke of Clarence into Masonic office. Morning and evening the requirements of the order room are met from enormous stocks in a great pile of buildings connected by a bridge. When the spring demand is at its height there are endless avenues of piled up sacks. Turnip, swede, and other round seeds are stored on the ground floor; the first floor is devoted to clovers, the next to mangel seeds, and above are the natural grasses. GLEANING GRASS SEED. Grass seed and clover seed though cleaned at the farm from which they come, have again to go through the refining process. There are many kinds of machines for deal-

ing with the farm seeds, but perhaps the most interesting is the jumping platform. The elongated grains of grass seed pass down a perforated iron platform which is subjected to a scries of knocks. At each knock the good seed jumps an inch or two into the air. Sooner or later the well-formed grains will come down end on and pass through the mesh. But the pieces of grass and the husks are not thrown so high, nor do they fall end on, and so they pass down the 14ft platform and are rejected. Potatoes are hand-picked, and the rejects, which are perfectly good for eating, are bought by the employees at a nominal price. Peas and beans are spread on a long table, and in the season a small army of women pick out every seed which has the least blemish or flaw. THE GLASS HOUSES. A thousand and one things could be learned from a tour of the vast establishment, but there were the trial seed grounds yet to be seen. From a purely oesthetic point of view they were a great joy, and the acres of flaming colours provide a treat for the hundreds of passengers who pass each day in the. trains of the Great Western Railway. The glass houses contained at this time thousands of begonias and gloxinias in bloom. These are for seeding purposes — an exception to the rule of sending the seed out to contractors. We saw the pure white gloxinia, “Her Majesty.” Once it had a yellow heart, but by a process of selection over 15 years the pure white bloom -was acquired. Red blooms, yellow, p>-k, arid bronze, some 7in in diameter, iil.Ud half a dozen large glass houses. EXPERIMENTS WITH GRASSES. Over 12,009 trial plots a.nd trial rooms are planted 1 in the grounds each 3-ear. Of asters alone there are 2000 trial row?, of sweet peas 1200. As each of those is watched with jealous care there is ample work for the outdoor staff. An interesting experiment is being carried on with several well-known grasses and clovers. A row of fescue grass ha? been grown from the commercial type and a row from seeds taken from the wild forms. It is found that the wild type is not so prelifio in its seeding as the commercial type, but it has qualities which it is desirable to incorporate in the commercial grass- Again, the wild white clover is practically perennial while the commercial type lasts only two years. Though the wild type has but few flowers and seeds it is hoped by cross breeding to acquire a commercial type cf longer life. The same with the red clover. The wild form is practically permanent while the commercial lasts for two years. Ihe commercial Seed of red clover is in colour a blend of purple and yellow. By a process of selection it has been found possible to produce a red clover with a seed entirely purple and a plant with a seed entirely yellow. And what is most interesting and important is the fact that the red clover grown from the yellow seed is almost permanent while that from the purple seed has but a short life. PEDIGREE VEGETABLES. So we passed through the endless row's of vegetables. Just vegetables, but there is something impressive about ihern. Some of them, maybe, had a direct and recorded ancestry of a hundred years. A drumhead cabbage, 401 b in weight, for instance, was not produced' in a few seasons. The perfectly formed swede, with the ideal characteristics, is not a product of unaided nature. But they are still frying for a swede with an uneyposed roof. A red variegated kale for decorative purposes, and a cattle kale with stalk thick enough to slice up for fodder have not come by chance. The collection of grasses which fringes the miniature golf course would gladden the heart of any botanist. A story is told of a botanist fr m Canada. On coming to a bed cf grass whose name is certainly more imposing than its appearance, he fell oh his knees and gave thanks that his life had been spared to see with his own eyes this rare specimen of nature’s handiwork. Something of this ..enthusiast’s veneration and respect for the fruits of the earth comes over one after a. day spent among the aristocrats of- the kingdom of plants.