Periodical Literature. 465 



As reason for relying mainly on broad-casting, especially of 

 conifers, is stated that the latter permits a more uniform develop- 

 ment in all directions. This is a poor reason except as to looks of 

 the plants, and where winter cover is needed drill sowing is 

 preferable. 



The sowing is done with greatest care especially as to the 

 amount of cover, so that practically every sprouting seed will 

 make a plant. 



A man lifts with a shovel from one-half of the bed a layer of 

 earth of about one-fourth of an inch and throws it on the other 

 half, a girl sows the carefully determined quantity of seed, a 

 second girl covers the seed with a layer of sand about one-eighth 

 of an inch, and the man returns the removed layer of earth. And 

 this process is continued from bed to bed by the well drilled crew 

 at an average cost of twenty-five cents per bed. The intermediate 

 layer of sand has for its purpose to prevent the formation of a 

 crust under the influences of rain, breaking the connection between 

 upper and lower earth layers. To keep the soil in friable condi- 

 tion until the cotyledons appear, great pains is taken, using a 

 simple but effective instrument, called "Igel" (porcupine), a 

 wooden roller of twenty-four inch diameter beset with one inch 

 long wire teeth. 



The seed, naturally tested and measured out according to germi- 

 nation per cent., is largely pre-germinated in order to effect uni- 

 form germination. 



For this purpose, according to hardness or time needed for 

 germination, earlier or later, the seed is placed in walled-up ditches 

 and water poured over it. Seeds in not too thick layers (to 

 avoid heating) liable to lie over are bedded in moist sand. 



Transplanting is also done without machinery. Men make 

 rills with a spade across beds, a line being stretched over all the 

 adjoining beds. Women place the plants along a lath on which 

 the distance is marked. The making of the second rill accom- 

 plishes the firming of the plants in the preceding rill. Three per- 

 sons transplant in this way 25,000 plants. 



Curiously enough the transplanting begins in July and is 

 finished by the beginning of October, partly in order to employ all 

 the help through the year efficiently, partly because in this way the 

 plants repair the roots the same fall and are ready next spring to 

 start at the earliest. 



