430 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



successful practice and more enjoyment in other horticultural operations. 

 My subject, as outlined to-night, will concern itself with the operations of 

 plant multiplication, rather than with the reasons for those operations or 

 with the selection and breeding of seed-parents. 



1. Seedage. Seed-saving and seed-sowing are coordinate branches of seed- 

 propagation, but seedage properly includes only a discussion of the latter. 

 In order to properly understand methods of sowing, however, we must know 

 something of seed selection. Pedigree in plants is fully as important as 

 pedigree in stock. Seeds tend to perpetuate the strongest characteristics of 

 their parents. Not only do certain external features of plants have this 

 influence upon the seeds, but the time of the year in which seeds are gath- 

 ered and the treatment to which they are submitted, have a more or less 

 decided influence. Seeds gathered before they are fully ripe will usually ger- 

 minate sooner than those of the same kind which are entirely mature. The 

 reason of this is obvious. After a seed is fully formed, the ripening process 

 consists largely in the fixing of carbon, and in the forming of a protective 

 coat. Before germination can take place in this fully ripened seed, the car- 

 bon must be liberated and the coat must be softened or broken so that the 

 embryo or germ can protrude itself. One of the first essentials to the liberation 

 of this carbon is water, moisture. The oxygen of the water unites with the 

 carbon of the seed, and the compound escapes, mostly or entirely in the form 

 of carbon dioxide or "carbonic acid." Any substance which will tend to 

 liberate this oxygen more freely, so that the combination with the carbon can 

 be more readily affected, is supposed to hasten germination. Several substances 

 are used for this purpose, especially upon old and feeble seeds. Sometimes seeds 

 are so feeble that such treatment is necessary. We have experimented with 

 several of these substances, with the result, at this time, that soaking twelve 

 or more hours in weak lime water proves the most satisfactory. 



The softening of the seed-coats is performed in a variety of ways by nature. 

 Usually the seeds fall to the ground in the fall and are buried under leaves, 

 where the alternate freezing and thawing and the fluctuations of moisture 

 split or macerate the coverings. Some fleshy fruits, as the choke-berry, hang 

 upon the plants during the winter, the fleshy portion perhaps answering the 

 purpose of the soil. There is much difference of opinion as to whether cold 

 is helpful to germination any further than as it aids in cracking the hard cover- 

 ings. Some contend that in some manner freezing tends to render the libera- 

 tion of carbon more easy, thus aiding germination. It is a common sup- 

 position that peach-pits will not germinate unless exposed to frost. This is 

 not true. There is good reason to believe, however, that frost hastens their 

 germination. It is probably the constant presence of moisture about seeds 

 that are frozen which causes much or most of the good result which follows 

 freezing. In general, however, exposure to frost and moisture have merely a 

 mechanical effect. With nearly all hard coated seeds we must imitate nature 

 in her methods of softening or cracking them. We do this by stratification. 

 Tins process consists in imbedding the seeds in boxes of clean, sifted sand, 

 for ordinary seeds using strata of sand an inch thick alternating with thin 

 layers of seeds. When the box or pot is filled with these layers, it is set out 

 of doors, or more commonly buried just underneath the surface, until spring. 

 [Here the speaker explained by object lessons the whole method of stratify- 

 ing.] Walnuts and other fruits of similar size, if in quantity, are buried in 

 a large pile, being mixed in with sand and leaves. Even with the best of 



