Around the House - TESTING SEEDS .- When you want new seed peas, put one from the stock into your mouth and bite it. If it is very hard it is more than one year old. If the teeth enter it with moderate ease it is new seed. New carrot seed always has a green shade on it. Old seed loses this, and is of a dead pale brown, and less fragrant. New parsnips has a shade of green, which it loses if more than one year old. Onion seed is more difficult to prove than most other seeds, but if you take a single seed at a time and carefully bite it-you will find that old seed has a tough dry skin, with a very white and harsh kernel, while new seed has a more tender, moist skin, and the kernel possesses a greater degree of moisture, and is somewhat oily. The seed may be cut with a penknife instead of bitten. Onion seed that has no vitality at all, has no kernel, or one perfectly dry. Test this by pressing the seed on a piece of white writing paper. If it leaves no moisture on the paper it is of no use, and has been tampered with, or has lost its vitality by age. New cabbage and  brocoli seed possesses a pale green shade in the kernel when pressed out or cut, and a tinge of  green in the brown skin also. But old seed loses this in proportion to its age, becoming of a dull, dark brown. Cabbage. brocoli, kales, etc., will retain their vitality longer than any other seeds, and will grow well when three years old, or even six years, if well kept. Beet seed has a faint tinge of pale green if new, but is a dull brown if old, and its vitality is very doubtful if old.
New celery seed has a faint tinge of green, and is very aromatic, but it loses the green and becomes less fragrant if more than a year old, and is doubtful.
IN reference to the note on "Bumble Bees and Clover Seed," let me say that I have tried the experiment for some eight years at the Agricultural College, and in every case bumble bees have greatly aided the yield of seeds of red clover. This may not be the case in Kansas or in many other places. To state the matter fairly, we ought to know whether there are not some other insects in Kansas (perhaps small insects), which take the place of bumble bees in other places.
M. J. BEAL.