RAISING FLOWBRING PLANTS FROM SEED. 233 



best. I grow every year a couple of thousand dozen of pansies for 

 the trade. I always preserve my list of kinds, the amount paid and 

 the amount sown, and when my pansies are in the flush of their 

 beauty then I make my list for the following year, discarding the 

 undesirable, adding new desirable kinds (for I test a few new kinds 

 each year) . and readjusting the quantity of each, so as to have 

 only the very best collection possible. And it pays, for I get the tip 

 top price, and they rarely go begging. It is also a good thing to 

 do, to test seeds for virility when one has facilities for so doing. 

 In gardening it is almost an absolute necessity with many varieties. 

 In sowing and raising the plants, my method with pansies for 

 the most part will do for all the other kinds of flowers I have 

 raised. (I mean those I have started indoors so as to have the 

 plants ready for transplanting to the open ground.) I have my 

 dirt just moist enough to work nicely, having put it through a sieve 

 with meshes about six to the inch. A sieve don't cost much and 

 is almost indispensable. By rnaking a box four inches deep and 

 anywhere from twelve to eighteen inches square and making the 

 bottom of galvanized wire netting, a good one is obtained. 



I am very careful not to have my dirt too wet, it packs and gets 

 hard afterward. I level the surface and firm it with a piece of 

 planed board ; then sow my seed, press them into the soil and 

 cover with sifted sand, about the consistency of Indian meal, smch 

 as is used for cooking. I put on the sand about one-eighth to one- 

 fourth of an inch deep, according to the size of the seed. I have 

 read that flower seed should be covered to a depth about the thick- 

 ness of the seed. That seems to me queer advice, for many seeds 

 are from one thirty-second to one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter. 

 By using sand more can be used, the seeds will easily come through 

 it, and if planted thickly will not raise the surface in a body, a little 

 jar or a light sprinkling settling the sand about the roots, and they 

 do nicely. 



I water them with warm water — 130 to 140 deg. is none to 

 warm. I put it on with a very fine rose, so as not to wash out the 

 seed, and am very careful not to let them get 4ry till the plants ap- 

 pear above the surface, iov if they get very dry while germinating 

 they are "all in," so to speak. 



I keep them quite warm, especially in the sunshine — for it's in the 

 sunshine I try to havet them. Next to good soil, sunshine makes 

 better plants than anything else. A little shading for some plants is 

 all right in the middle of the day just- as they are coming up, but 

 dampness has killed more 'plants for me ten to one than heat or 

 sunshine. 



