NOTES ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TREE SEED-TESTING. 277 



XXII. Notes on the Importance of Tree Seed-Testing. By 

 Johannes Eapn, Skovfrbkontoret, Copenhagen, 

 Denmark. 



As I believe that the tests of seeds of conifers and deciduous 

 trees and shrubs which I have had carried out since 1888, when 

 I started business, might be of general interest, I take the liberty 

 to hand over the following abstract of these for publication in 

 the Transactions of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society. 

 As far as I know, such extensive experiments have not been 

 carried out anywhere before, and I therefore hope that they may 

 be of practical value for Scottish forest owners, amongst whom 

 extensive experiments with many different rare species of conifers 

 and deciduous trees are going on. 



As will appear from the Tables of the tests, many Bpecies, 

 especially of deciduous trees, have only given negative results of 

 the tests, as, for instance, Carpinus, Carya, Tilia, and others ; 

 but, of course, such seeds as take years to germinate cannot be 

 made to grow by artificial means within a reasonable time. Also 

 some conifers have failed, such as Ginkgo, which usually germin- 

 ates easily enough, and Juniperus, Pinus cembra, P. koraiensis, 

 and P. Parryana, but these again are slowly germinating species. 

 Still there are plenty of good results, as I hope will appear from 

 the following report. 



I shall now first direct attention to the results of the testing of 

 the germination, and then afterwards mention the figures found 

 for the weight of the seeds. 



Germination of Conifer Seeds. 



In composing the Tables, I should have liked to divide the tests 

 into two periods, an older, from 1888-1892, and a newer one for 

 the following years, as I have done in the Danish Tidsshrift for 

 Skovvossen (Chronicle of Forestry) ; but in order not to take up 

 too much of the limited space here, I shall confine myself to an 

 extract thereof, as it very distinctly shows that the work of the 

 testing establishments has not been in vain, as all the worst 

 figures fall in the older period. 



VOL. XVI. PART II. U 



