PROPAGATION OF PLAi^TS BY SEEDS. 63 



Keep the box at a temperature as near sixty degrees as 

 possible at night, with ten degrees higher in the daytime, 

 taking care to give it a shower of spray only when the 

 surface appears to be dry. But few seeds will fail to 

 germinate under such conditions. This temperature will 

 suffice for the germination of seeds of nearly all annuals 

 and general assortment of greenhouse plants, which may 

 be sown in greenhouse, hot-bed, or sitting-room, from 

 January until March; by that time, as the season gets 

 warmer, seeds of tropical plants, such as Coleus, Egg 

 Plant, etc., may be sown. But after the seeds have 

 **' brairded," as the Scotch gardeners say, comes another 

 difficulty. In quite a number of plants, particularly if 

 sown in the house, just as soon as the seed leaf has de- 

 velopsd, and before the first rough or true leaves have 

 formed, the seedling is attacked by a minute fungus, 

 that will often sweep off the whole crop in forty-eight 

 hours if not attended to. The required attention is, that 

 as soon as there are indications of t?ie '^ dam})ing off" of 

 these tiny seedlings, they must be carefully taken up and 

 planted out in similar boxes, prepared exactly as the 

 seed-boxes have been. They may be planted quite closely, 

 not more than half an inch apart, and let their further 

 treatment be exactly the same as in germinating the seeds. 

 In the course of a few weeks they will have grown freely, 

 and they may then be lifted and j^laced in simihir boxes, 

 but wider apart, say three or four inches, or potted singly 

 in two and a half or three-inch pots, as most convenient, 

 until such time as they are to be planted out in the 

 open ground, or used otherwise. In this way as great 

 a number of plants may be raised from a twenty-five 

 or fifty cent packet of seed as would cost $25 or .$50 

 to purchase in plants, besides the far greater satisfaction 

 of their being the product of your own hands. 



