Report of Supervisors' Meeting. 441 



until we thought tlie cones were ripe. We finished our extrac- 

 tion of seed on October 12, being less than a month at that camp. 

 There were three of us, and we cleaned up 1,272 pounds of seed. 

 This seed was floated for a few minutes in cold spring water. 

 The amount of chafif and refuse we skimmed off after floating the 

 seed was 22 per cent, in weight. We float the seed twice; after 

 floating them the first time, we skimmed off the chaff and then 

 floated it over again. After that we had 22 per cent, chaff; this 

 includes the si f tings which fell on the sheet when we screened the 

 cones to get rid of the dirt. 



In all of the cases I have mentioned the seed was gathered 

 from thrifty young trees about eight or ten inches in diameter, 

 and 25 or 30 feet high. We also gathered seed from old matured 

 trees, such as spike tops, etc. The cones from these trees were 

 found to be a little different in shape, being longer and more 

 pointed. These trees are termed by the lumbermen yellow pine, 

 while the others are called jack pine. The cones gathered from 

 the old trees yielded four pounds of clean seed per bushel. 



When we had the seed extracted we put a bushel of the winged 

 seed in a seamless sack, laid them on a wagon sheet on the ground 

 and tramped the sack under foot for about ten minutes with a 

 sort of rotary motion. We then winnowed the seed in the wind, 

 and allowed them to drop into a box with a wire screen bottom. 

 We would then shake the box, and get rid of the little particles of 

 chaff attached to the seed. The seed was fairly clean after that 

 operation, except for the shoulders or clips. The floating oper- 

 ations were done in cold spring water, and the seed were not al- 

 lowed to remain in the water over eight minutes. When we put 

 them in the water, and stirred them up briskly, it removed all the 

 wings and clips, and it was absolutely clean. Our cleaned seed 

 cost us 58.9 cents per pound which includes everything." 



While discussing seed extraction, Mr. Imes said : "I am still 

 endeavoring to find out just what is the best method of extract- 

 ing seed by artificial heat. We have worked at it since Septem- 

 ber, and I think I have found out a few things that should not be 

 done, and a few things that should be done. I can best explain 

 by describing our operations from the time they started. I had 

 never seen a pine cone treated by artificial heat, and knew noth- 

 ing about it. I thought it was simply a matter of applying the 

 heat, but soon found it was quite a different proposition. 



