CHAPTER VII. 

 GROWTH OF PLANTS FROM SEEDS. 



Conditions essential to the germination of seeds are heat and moisture 

 in degrees and amounts meeting the natural requirements of the kind of 

 seed, as may be noted in certain cases later. It is, however, true that 

 medium conditions suit seeds of most plants, as may be inferred from the 

 common use of descriptive words ; that is, the soil in which they are 

 expected to grow should be warm, and neither hot nor cold ; it should be 

 moist and neither dry nor wet. The presence of air is also necessary, but 

 the occurrence of a vacuum is practically impossible in any gardening outfit. 

 Germinating seeds do not require "fresh air" in the way that growing 

 plants or the higher animals do, and if a propagator should secure for his 

 seeds such a supply as he might desire for himself, they would probably 

 fail of germination, through loss of heat and moisture. Growing seeds do 

 not need "sleeping porches" ; they do better in "incubators." Let the 

 beginner, therefore, seek to secure proper heat and moisture and these are 

 insured chiefly through four agencies the right kind of soil ; regulation of 

 sun heat by covering, for conservation or exclusion ; production of heat by 

 fire or fermentation ; regulation of moisture by sprinkling and drainage. 

 Although the three last named are largely secured through the action of 

 suitable soil as a conveyer of heat and moisture, the air is also a conveyor 

 thereof and must not be allowed to rob the soil with which it comes into 

 contact For this reason air may be freely admitted or must be largely 

 excluded according to the degree of temperature or aridity which it carries 

 at the time. 



For this reason seeds usually need to be covered into the soil and the 

 soil pressed firmly around them to secure uniformity of heat and moist- 

 ure by immediate contact which prevents too free air-movement. Contact 

 also enables the rootlets of the germinating seed to lay hold on the soil 

 particles and thus begin to use soil nutriment. It is impossible to give an 

 exact rule for the depth of soil-covering for soils are various and act 

 differently in moisture conveyance and air-movement. A certain very old 

 rule may, however, be suggestive, viz. : that the depth of covering should be 

 four times the diameter of the seed. This would cover a sweet pea about 

 an inch and allow a poppy seed to be merely pressed into the surface and 

 this, under good growing conditions, would be about right in both cases. 

 As most flowers produce small seeds the common advice to "cover lightly" 

 is good, and it is manifestly nature's example, for most wild seeds are 

 surface-sown. But there is another hint which the sower of seeds in open 

 ground should take from nature. The soil in wild places usually has a 

 crumby surface owing to its disturbance by ground insects and the crumbs 



