The diversity of crops leads to several cutting methods. Nasturtiums may be windrowed on the ground. Species with seed heads that shatter at a touch must go onto large canvas sheets.

The stems of petunia plants are so Sticky that, even though the seed shatters out of the capsule, a significant amount of it adheres to the stem and can be saved if the whole plant is put on sheets to dry. Only early-rising visitors see the cutting operation, which is carried out when the morning dew is on the plants to avoid loss of the dry seeds. The drying period varies according to the weather, but usually is 10 to 20 days. Rain at this time is catastrophic.

Regardless of the trend toward mechanization, a major part of harvesting is still handwork, either in preparation or finishing. In perennials such as delphinium, several hand-pickings precede the final cutting because the plants have a long flowering period and seed production is continuous.

Zinnias are commonly handpicked, and the flower heads must be flat rolled preparatory to threshing, as the seeds stick tenaciously to the central cone.

RECLEANING is basically the same operation as in the rest of the seed industry. Fanning mills, specific gravity separators, disk and roller separators, and occasionally flotation are used.

The difference with flower seeds lie., in the multiplicity of small lots, whirl, necessitate short machine runs and scrupulous cleaning of the machinery between each run. The high wholesale value makes for extreme care and elaborate record keeping. The dimensions of the recleaner's job can be illustrates by the fact that more than 4 million petunia seeds weigh a pound (some times worth as much as 100 dollars) a pound of sweetpea seeds has about 500 seeds, worth perhaps 70 cents Screens, sieves, disks, and such to handle all shapes and sizes are essential RELATIVE AIR humidity has an important bearing on the curing of Howe seed in the field. Generally speaking the lower it is, the better. One of the reasons why production is concentrated in California is that normal drying may be accomplished entirely under natural conditions, and California seed is famous for its high initial germination and long keeping qualities. Up to 1958, practically no artificial drying machinery was used in the industry; then it was introduced to extend the already excellent keeping qualities of the California product.

A large part of United States production is processed to the optimum moisture content for long-term storage and sealed in moisture-vapor-proof containers so that retailers in "wet" climates can count on the vigor, vitality, and keeping qualities of the seeds as originally harvested.

THE GREATEST change in the American flower seed industry since the Second World War is the expansion of greenhouse production. It stems from the application of the F, hybrid principle to give garden and florist plants tremendously greater vigor and productivity.

Petunias are the most important greenhouse crop of flower seeds in dollar value. The reason is that some colors (scarlet and coral) and forms (doubles and 100-percent large-flowered singles) can be had only as hybrids grown in the greenhouse. The essence of the production of F₁ hybrid seed is the development of unique parent strains for use in a specific and controlled cross. The research work involved is such that only well-organized seed firms are in a position to initiate or contract production. The crop requires a supervisor with the equivalent technical education of the flower breeder..

Production is under a glass or plastic cover. Plastic is used in summer or the whole year in California. Usually even the ventilators are screened to keep out insects that might bear contaminating pollen. The sanitary precautions to prevent disease are formidable.

The seed parent (female) is pot or bench grown. The anthers and stamens of each flower are removed before it opens. The procedure is called emasculation. The pollen parent is grown elsewhere, and its pollen is gathered when it is ripe.

The pistil of the seed parent is receptive about a week after emasculation, and pollen from the male parent is applied to fertilize the flower. In 6 weeks the seed capsule has matured. Then it is harvested by hand.

Production is continuous on each plant, which may produce hundreds of flowers during its useful life. (Petunias and antirrhinums, or snapdragons, are first-year-blooming perennials, but disease and forced seed production result in a useful plantlife of only 5 months.)

Production is measured in ounces per thousand plants. Few of the dozens of varieties on the market reach a production rate of 100 ounces a year or more, but the value of that amount exceeds 10 thousand dollars at wholesale.

The problems in this type of seed production may center around disease (which is always a danger with pot-grown plants weakened by forced seeding), pollen contamination, plant nutrition, temperatures, humidities, light intensities, and the growth or productivity quirks of parent lines seemingly identical with their sisters. Labor availability and utilization, effective supervision, and the ever-present concern with product quality are more akin to manufacturing than to farming.

AN INSPECTION of seed catalogs and the advertisements of retail seedsmen indicate the drive that flower seed producers have to produce new, unique, and improved varieties every year.

Some notable contributions have been made by amateurs for example, McKana's aquilegia, which won an All-America award but the main body of this work is carried on by the wholesalers, large and small, of flower seeds. A large company will budget up to 5 percent of its annual income to research work.

The introduction of new varieties before the Second World War depended primarily on line selection, a method still basic, particularly in maintaining the highly bred standard strains. The typical novelty developed in this way used to require about 10 years from idea to finished product.

Improved techniques, which yield more than one generation in a year, and better knowledge of the behavior of the plant material have cut the development time to an average of 5 years. The F₁ hybrid technique, however, not only in petunias and antirrhinums but in a widening array, including marigolds and zinnias, has increased the number of new items marketed each year.

People who grow flower seed form a rather exclusive "club" (350 of them in 1960), whose initiation may be complicated but whose education is likely to be one of the broadest in agriculture. Independent people with a lively interest in many things and skills are drawn in, not particularly to get rich (although salaries totaled 900 thousand dollars in 1960), but because competence is widely respected in the industry and pride of craftsmanship is strong. Many new cultural, chemical, and genetic techniques, which eventually find application in the seed trade as a whole, are pioneered by the workers in this small, highly skilled industry.

More than 25 million American families plant flower seeds each year, for a total of many millions of hours of gardening pleasure. Some of them may give little thought to whether the seeds are better than what their parents planted. The flower seed people, however, give the matter a lot of thought: Most of them do indeed love flowers, but not uncritically; they are dedicated to producing the very best strains, and next year they will be better than that.

HOWARD BODGER, F. R. H. S., is vice president, Bodger Seeds Ltd., a director of the All-America Selections program, a trustee of the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum, and a director, Southern California Horticultural Institute.