“The seed might be poor,” replied Peter.  “George has been testing seed,” said Jay, “and he might tell us about it now, couldn’t he, Chief?  It seems to come in here.”  The Chief nodded.

“I have been finding out whether certain seeds which I happen to have on hand are worth planting or not.  If any of you fellows have seed and wish to find this out, you can easily enough.  So you can be sure whether old seed is worth planting.  Now it happens that father had some of his last year’s corn and some from four years ago.  So I took 100 seeds of each.  If you test small seed like lettuce, The Chief says 50 seeds will do.  These I put on blotters just as Pete did his.  Of course, I kept them separate.  From last year’s seed 90 seeds sprouted out of the 100, or 9/10 of them.  And that equals 90 per cent.  If all seed was 90 per cent. good it would be all right to use, I think.  Now when I looked at the four-year-old seed, what do you think?  Only five seeds had started.  That makes only 1/20, or 5 per cent.  Of course, no one would care to use seed where only 5 per cent. of the seed sprouted.”

“Is there any real percentage of germination that seeds should have?” Jack asked eagerly.

“Yes,” replied The Chief, “although value as you see from George’s experiment is lost by age.  The real standard germination value for corn is 87 per cent., for beans 90, for turnips 90, for peas 93, etc.  You can see that the per cents. for these vegetables run high.  So do not use seeds when the per cent. has dropped too low.

“Has George found out the time when other seeds lose value?” asked Peter.  “I did not work this table out because I did not have the old seed to work with,” replied George, “but The Chief gave me a book to look it up in.  I have printed on our press the table.  So you fellows may each have a copy.”  George handed the sheets around the table.

It happened that The Chief had a little old printing press that he had presented to the Club.  Club real estate, Albert called it.

    George’s table

    Age of seeds for planting purposes

2-3 years.        3-4 years.    5-6 years.    8-10 years. 
Corn      Tomato      Beet          Pea (5-6)     Cucumber
Celery    Pepper      Lettuce       Radish (4-5)  Melon
Carrot    Onion       Turnip (3-6)                Squash
Bean      Parsley                                 Pumpkin

“Now, George,” Albert begged, “give us a table of germinating per cents.”

“Not much, each fellow can work out the value of his own old seeds and see if they are worth using.”

“I think George is right,” began The Chief after the laugh at Albert’s expense ceased.  “Perhaps you’d like to try the effect of depth of planting on corn.  Here are some boxes of earth.  George, you plant six kernels of corn one inch deep and mark the box with your name and the depth on it, Peter, plant the next box with six kernels at two inches.  Albert, try three inches, and Jack, four inches.  It will be your business, Myron, to drop in here each half day and note the first appearance of corn in the different boxes.”