Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

82 none could say whither it came. The first plant came up in a pot containing a Geranium, and the grower, noticing the rich colour and the elegantly cut foliage, looked after it; and our present-day favourite re- sulted. Assuming that the seeds have been carefully ripened and harvested, the next opera- tion will be cleaning, which is done in large warehouses. The details with different kinds vary considerably, but the broad principle — to remove chaff and light seeds—is the same. Big stocks of seeds are cleaned by machinery operating fans, which blow out defective seeds and husks, and leave the clean, sound product. With a seed like Begonia, an ounce of which may be worth ^25 or even more, delicate handling- BRITAIN AT WORK. WOMEN HAND-PICKING PEAS (WEBBS). is necessary, and it is fanned by hand labour; a skilful worker being able to throw out bad stuff without wasting one sound seed. This method is adopted with many choice seeds. A third system is cleans- ing by hand sifting. Hair sieves or riddles are employed, and a rotatory action is main- tained. This will bring the chaff and light seeds into a little heap in the middle, whence they are carefully removed ; the sifting is per- sisted in until not a single bad seed can be brought to the surface. With Peas and Beans hand picking becomes, a necessity, as there is no machine which will A HOUSE OF SUTTONS’ PRIMULAS AT READING. clear out every specked seed. Some of these are as heavy as the good seed, and many of them have equal germinating power ; but in appearance they spoil the sample, and must therefore be re- moved. This is done by women, as shown in one of our illustrations. The benches have holes in the centre in front, beneath which sacks arc attached. The peas are drawn to- wards the operator, the bad ones removed, and the good ones passed down into the sack. The work is clone very rapidly by experienced pickers,.