40 Forestry Quarterly. 



size depends upon the maximum amount of seed being extracted 

 during tlie winter months, from December to April. It must be 

 mouse-proof, dry and of a uniform temperature. 



All the other seed, in particular that being cleaned from April 

 to December, is stored in the wing-removing room until the 

 completion of the germination tests, after which it is finally dried 

 out for an hour just inside the exit door of the drying-kiln in 

 order to remove any absorbed moisture. (This final drying out 

 has the same object which the prudent farmer aims at when he 

 spreads out his hay in the midday sun just before putting it in, in 

 order to dry out the dew or other moisture before putting it in). 



The seed is then at once poured into glass carboys ; these are 

 corked and sealed and taken into the seed-house cellar. 



X. The Seed-house Cellar. 



Older experiments by Cieslar and others as well as more recent, 

 very exact, year-long experiments by Haack have shown that the 

 storage of cones, be it ever so well done, in order to open them in 

 subsequent poor seed years, does not prevent the germination 

 capacity from falling off from year to year until it speedily 

 becomes useless for practical sowing. The experiments have 

 further show^n that the gemiination capacity remains much more 

 constant if the pure seed is shut up in the dark, uniformly dry 

 and cold. 



One is perhaps warranted in stating the proposition in the 

 following w^ay : The seed contains a living thing which is 

 capable, on the one hand ( i ) of protecting itself to a certain 

 degree against inopportune development, on the other hand (2) 

 of taking advantage of favorable moments for development and 

 growth. 



Concerning ( i ) : In the dry summer season the outer corky 

 layer of the seed, the seed coat, becomes hard ; it seems indeed as 

 if the inner, thinner seed coat also becomes corky to protect itself, 

 since the seed shrinks and no longer fills out the inside of the 

 outer capsule. One can easily recognize, in the case of larger 

 kinds of seed, as for example oaks, how when laid upon too dry 

 ground they germinate with difficulty, after long delay, or not at 

 all. While the same oak seeds, if one splits the outer hard shell 



