in the first place this week I came across a great seed saving story .
A buried Lucius DuBignon Clay shock filled with squash vine seeds was discovered – and the seed germinated , get back a long - lost Native American staple fiber squash .
What a great story ! What a dramatic play !
So I tweeted it out to my follower on Twitter :
The link tothe original storyis here .
But the bang-up seed preservation story is just that : a story .
Image fromBaker Creek
A Clarence Day after my original tweet , a fact - checking lector beam me another connexion :
Uh - oh .
Here’sthe link William send off me .
From that article :
The story that accompanied the “ Gete - Okosomin ” squash ejaculate was that they were base in a cadaver ball at an archaeological digging near the Wisconsin - Illinois border . It went on to suggest that the dating of the clay ball indicated that the seeds were more than 800 years one-time .
The story captured the imagination of semen savers and gardener across the continent . It is a in effect tale , but is it true ?
When ask , Kenton Lobe , teacher in external exploitation studies and one of the CMU Farm ’s founders , smiles .
“ The truth of the story of these squash seeds is still emerging , ” he pronounce .
Further labor into the history reveals that they were earlier endow to David Wrone , a University of Wisconsin emeritus historian , by some elder woman nurseryman from the Miami Nation in Indiana in 1995 .
One of these squash had been spring up and saved by the Miami people for many generations , perhaps even M of years .
In a banker’s bill to the White Earth Seed Library , Wrone related that he had earlier received squash seeds that had been found deeply underground in a Kentucky cave .
They were well preserved and estimate to be several thousand years one-time . Wrone grew them , but they were “ smallish and not as tasty . ”
The seeds from the Miami women were partake with Wrone and finally with White Earth Seed Library .
Over meter and through many telling , these two crush ejaculate stories crossed and become into one .
As often happens , a few different story got mixed together into one AMAZING SEED SAVING STORY that was infinitely press - worthy .
The fact that my first tweet got 25 re - tweets within a day is a testament to the powerfulness of a good tarradiddle .
germ saving stories inspire us . They link us to the past . They testify to the power of living .
Seeds Capture the Imagination
When most of us have a hard time getting our clavus seed from last year to germinate consistently , it ’s inspiring to readthe story of a Biblical - era date palm stone spring to life 2,000 yr after it was hide out awayor a wildflowerthat was successfully clonedafter an alleged 32,000 years of icy sepulture .
That latter taradiddle would be perfect for a confederacy theorist to latch on to since the leader of the Russian science team died right as the finding were announce :
“ Tragedy has now struck the Russian squad . Dr. Gilichinksy , its drawing card , was hospitalise with an bronchial asthma attack and unable to reply to questions , his daughter Yana say on Friday . On Saturday , Dr. Price account that Dr. Gilichinsky had go of a heart attack . ”
Image fromBaker Creek
Coincidence ?
Or maybe THEY do n’t desire us bringing back plants from the past !
In the past , some unscrupulous seed salesman did apply awe-inspiring germ redeem stories to cant their doubtful product to a gullible public .
The heat for “ Mummy Wheat ” in Victorian England is one such story that held a fascination for many , as recite in this paperby Gabriel Moshenka :
What a great account ! Ancient wheat , clutched in the juiceless skeletal bridge player of a long - dead pharaoh … springing to new lifespan in your backyard .
Too bad it was n’t reliable . Wheat just does n’t require to germinate after a mates of ten . seed are last things in a land of stasis … and eventually their clocks run out .
The Seed Clock is Always Ticking
A few year ago I readThe Seed Underground : A Growing Revolution to Save Food . It ’s marvelous . Janisse Ray has some of the most beautiful prose imaginable . Even when I disagree with her , I love the room she say what she says .
A point that struck me again and again while understand her book was how dynamic a procedure ejaculate - saving is .
You ca n’t just save a good batch of ejaculate one year , pack them prettily into mason jars , then rest on your non - germinating Stan Laurel for the next ten yr .
The homo and woman who are carefully selecting , maintain and partake lines of seeds have to form at it . They may get to skip a year every once in a while – but skipping multiple age direct to weak lines and poor sprouting pace .
The death of one dedicated ejaculate saver may mean the last of multiple seminal fluid melodic line with him .
There are almost infinite possibilities contained in some of our vegetable . Just take care at the blanket scope of corn you could spring up . Or beans !
Image fromBaker Creek
There are hundreds … thousands … millions of possibility !
If you have a lima bean that mutates and produces pink clean lima bean , you have a new potpourri . If you do n’t deliver the seeds , it will disappear , perhaps to resurface for someone else in the future … or perhaps never to be seen again .
History Marches Onward
Every item-by-item plant is a distinguishable foundation , like snowbird and fingerprint . you could cease up with an “ heirloom ” variety by planting mortal with standardised characteristics or by inbreeding a bank line until what you like is dominant and expresses itself consistently … but it will change over meter , slightly , from generation to genesis .
If it gets unexpectedly crossed with something dissimilar , you may never get that original coherent pedigree back again .
The straw we eat today is a far cry from the pale yellow our ancestors ate . The Gala apple of modern supermarkets is n’t the same as the orchard apple tree the Romans ate .
All we have on some of these ancient ejaculate - lines is supposition .
Yet many of the genes are still being guide in , albeit in alter form , in our forward-looking vegetable seeds .
Year after year , garden after garden , farmers and gardeners have save seeds and selected for their favorite characteristics . I ’m doing that mightily now with mySeminole Pumpkin / Dave ’s Giant Mutant Tropical Squash breeding labor .
One Clarence Shepard Day Jr. citizenry in the far future may question where this amazing tropical pumpkin seed line come from .
Perhaps they ’ll even tell the story of how the organic structure of an ancient nurseryman with a tasteless shirt and hat was exhumed with a grip of still - feasible seeds clutched in his moldering hired man …
… then someone will debunk the tale and ruin all the fun .
