of a still sunny morning. Carry the clusters at once, without shaking or jarring, to a well lighted, 

 dry, warm room, free from currents of air. Having provided a new, clean tin box, say three 

 inches square by one inch deep, with tightly fitting lid, take up each cluster by the stem and 

 strike it gently several times into the open box. This will cause the pollen to fall out of all open 

 anthers and adhere either to the bottom or sides of the box, the pollen being a little gummy. 

 When all the clusters have been so treated, then with small sharp scissors clip off all the anthers 

 of open flowers, into the box, and set the box, open, on window sill, window closed, so strong 

 diffused light, but not direct sun rays, enters the box. Every twenty or thirty minutes close the 

 lid of box and shake sharply, then open and expose to light again. Repeat the shaking three or 

 four times, when all the pollen will be dislodged from the anthers that will come out; then gently 

 winnow off the shriveled anthers, corollas, and other foreign particles that may have fallen in 

 with them from the clusters. The pollen will appear as a pale yellow flour about the sides, top 

 and bottom of the box. Now let the box stand open in the warm air and diffused light for an 

 hour or two, when it will be dry and in good keeping condition. Close the box and paste over 

 the seam between lid and box a strip of paper to keep out air and minute insects. Wrap and 

 label the box with variety name of grape, and keep in a dry, warm room, never below 60 nor 

 above 80 if possible. 



W T hen the flowers to be pollenized are opening, properly prepare them, as heretofore 

 directed, and with the tip of a delicate camel's hair (or cat's-tail hair) pencil, moistened in pure 

 water, take up some of the dry pollen from the box and apply to the stigmas, and cover the 

 pollenized clusters in tissue paper sacks. 



Labeling and Saving the Seeds 



Every cluster thus pollenized in our work is at once labeled and recorded, and the fruit 

 carefully guarded, by sacking, and gathered as soon as well colored. The seeds are taken from 

 the berries and dried on paper in room, then carefully wrapped, labeled as to parentage, and 

 put away from mice. 



Planting the Seeds 



A warm, rich piece of level or nearly level soil, free from weed seeds as possible, protected 

 from sweeping winds, and scratching fowls, is selected and pulverized deeply with spade or plow, 

 made fine and smooth with the rake, in November or December. The seeds are then sown in 

 drills, about three feet apart, and about as thickly along the drills as radish seeds are sown, and 

 one to one and a half inches deep; covered with mellow soil and firmly pressed down, by walk- 

 ing on the row after covering, then smoothing again with rake. Each variety is labeled on a 

 stake driven at its beginning, and a record of the plantation made in the experiment book. 



The seeds germinate slowly, and being very hard, nut-like, do better to thus get frozen in 

 the moist soil. The plantlets of the early leafing species will appear in spring about with the 

 young oak leaves, some varieties much sooner than others, the slowest species coming two, three 

 or four weeks later than the first. As will be observed in Table of Cultural Characters, page 121, 

 species which leaf out, or germinate early, will generally also flower and ripen early. There are, 

 however, some exceptions to this rule, the V. candicans (Mustang) being one such, which leaves, 

 flowers and ripens early, but the seeds germinate very late. 



Tending and Culling the Seedlings 



In spring the seed bed is carefully watched, and no weed seeds allowed to more than show 

 their germs above ground until they are destroyed, and the soil kept well pulverized without 

 disturbing the grape seeds. 



As soon as the grape plantlets are well up and have formed their second leaves, they are 

 carefully gone over, and every weakly and deformed plant pulled out. Within a month after first 



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