362 Forestry Quarterly 



From this summary, it is seen that 97.2 grams of seed balls 

 contained 67.3 grams of cleaned seed or 69.6 per cent. This com- 

 pares closely with the 67 per cent cleaned seed in the 5 balls of 

 tree A detailed above. 



The 34.1 grams of cleaned seed averaged 406 seeds per gram 

 and the seed balls average 280 seeds per gram. Reduced to the 

 pound basis (1 Kilogram=3.20 lbs.) 1 pound of cleaned seed 

 contains approximately 185,000 seeds while 1 pound of seed balls 

 contains 127,000 seeds. 



The germination experiment may be summarized as in table 

 on page 363. 



The points in this summary are as follows: 



1. The germination per cent of sycamore seed is very low. 

 varying from .04 to 2.70 per cent in this experiment. This would 

 indicate the sowing of about 1 to 2 pounds of uncleaned seed 

 per each 200 square feet of nursery bed (4' X 50'). Full plant- 

 ing or stratifying seed might increase this low germination rate. 



2. Wetting the seed appears to shorten the time and increases 

 the percentage of germination. 



Magnolia acuminata. Seed collected in 1909 and stratified in 

 sand over winter. Eight hundred seeds weighed 126 grams or 

 2880 seeds per pound. Seeds to the number of 1830 planted 

 dry on May 13 germinated June 29 to August 5. One-half of one 

 per cent germinated. 



Another 800 seeds were soaked May 13 to 21. Of these 110 

 floating seeds were planted by themselves to verify the propriety 

 of their rejection. None germinated. Of the remaining 690 

 sunken seeds 28 germinated or 4^^ per cent. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH OLD SEED 



Fraxintis pennsylvanica (2-year-old seed). Seed collected 

 1908. Stored dry. The weight of 1150 seeds (with wings) was 

 42 grams or 12,400 seeds per pound. Planted May 10, 1910. 

 June 3 first seedlings up. Germination practically complete June 

 20. A few appeared until July 9. Forty-five per cent germinated. 



Cupressus macrocarpa (2-year-old seed). Seed collected 1908 

 (August) by the Monterey, California, tree growing club. The 

 weight of 1094 seeds was 8 grams or 62,000 seeds per pound. 

 There were 94 dry seeds planted dry on May 6, 1910, of which 

 6 per cent germinated ; 1094 seeds were soaked for four days, of 

 which 125 floated and were rejected. Of 969 seeds planted, 11 



