FURTHER NOTES ON TREE SEED-TESTING. 409 



This Douglasii seed from Oregon had, further, after the thirty 

 days' test, 37*02 per cent, of sound but not germinated seeds. 



When comparing the figures, it will at once be clear to every 

 expert that after a ten days' test the Colorado seed appeared 

 to be exceptionally good, whereas the seed of Sitka spruce and 

 Douglas fir from Oregon was nearly worthless. If hot and dry 

 weather happens to set in after sowing in the nursery, the two 

 species with a germinative capacity so great that nearly all the 

 seed has grown in the course of ten days will pull through, whereas 

 the others will certainly fail. But still seed like that of Douglasii 

 from Oregon may possibly not be refused when considered as an 

 article of commerce, for when the sound seeds that have not 

 germinated in the course of thirty days are added to the 36 per 

 cent, germinated seed, the sample contains 73 per cent, of sound 

 seeds which, given time and plenty of moisture, will be brought 

 to germinate, as is indicated in the last column of the Table on 

 p. 412. The results noted there are not gained in the usual way, 

 namely, by means of a high temperature, but by slow germina- 

 tion in an unheated verandah. The test of the Douglasii seed 

 here was commenced at the end of February, and after a hundred 

 days 67 per cent, of the seed had germinated. As an article of 

 commerce such seed need not, as before mentioned, be rejected ; 

 but for use in the nurseries it is certainly better to be without 

 it, except it be possible, during three months, to give the seed an 

 even moisture in the seed-beds. If this cannot hi done, the result 

 of the sowing will certainly not be satisfactory. The Douglasii 

 seed from Oregon was accordingly refused by me, and not dis- 

 tributed to the nurseries; but, acting under instructions from 

 my American consigner, it was passed on to a German firm. 



In the past season (autumn 1900) no seed of the Douglas fir 

 was saved in Oregon — the native home of the quick-growing, 

 green variety that is so well suited for the milder parts of Central 

 Europe and the British Isles, — and the many hundredweights of 

 seed that were exported from there to Europe in the spring of 

 1901 must have been at least one year old, and are sure to have 

 brought many disappointments when sown in the nurseries. 



Also amongst seed of hardwoods the different germinative 

 capacity has appeared very strikingly. Takiag Alims glutinosa 

 and A. incana, for instance, there is already, after a five days' test, 

 a very distinct difference between old and new seed. A. incana 

 of the crop of 1899 germinated only 9 per cent, in five days, 



