62 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUIJE. 



J AX. 



it. Such a screen, or sieve, made of galvan- 

 ized iron wire, so it can not rust, costs $5.00. 

 It is 2 feet wide by o-i feet long. They are 

 used by masons, coal-dealers, and for many 

 other purposes. If you live near a large 

 city, you can often get the sweepings from 

 the pavements, which Peter Henderson con- 

 siders worth as much as barnyard manure. 

 Run it tjirough the sieve as above, and it is 

 ready for business. Below is a cut of this 

 last sifter. 



SCREEN r(n< COAL, SAND, ASHES, on GARDEN SOIL. 



Where yon are going over a still larger ex- 

 tent of ground, and wish to get out sticks, 

 stones, hard lumps, etc., but don't care 

 about being so very particular, a still coarser 

 screen is sometimes handy— such a one as 

 dealers in coal use largely. A very handy 

 one is shown below, with a foot-board and 

 leg. 



COAL-SCREEN, TO HE T'SED FOR OARnENING FUR- 

 POSES. 



This last machine is the one we shall use 

 for preparing the soil over our covered res- 

 ervoirs, described in Chapter VII. We pass 

 the surface soil through this to make it fine, 

 and to get out all the stones and other im- 

 pediments to high culture. This debris 

 which is screened out is used for tilling the 

 overflow Alters, which permit the water to 

 flow from one reservoir to the other. 



Now as we have discussed soils and sieves, 

 let us sow our seeds. As no plan has given 

 us such success as the one described by Peter 

 Henderson, in his book entitled (4arden and 

 Farm Topics, we give it in his own words 

 here : 



Since 1886 we have made many important improve- 

 ments in culture under glass, particularly in the 

 methods in use in starting ])lants of cabbage, cauli- 

 flower, and lettuce. The old plan of sowing the 

 seeds for these plants in the open air in Sept., and 

 pricking them off in Oct., and keeping them in cold 

 frames, is gradually giving way to sowing in green 

 houses or hotbeds in February, and pi-icking out in 

 March, which gives a far healthier and nearly as 

 strong a plant, by the first week in April, as those 

 that have been wintered over. The past season we 

 raised nearly half a million of plants in this manner, 

 which we sold at $5.00 per thousand, a price as 

 profitable to us as the plants were satisfactory to 

 the buyers. We sowed the seed the first week iu 

 February, in one of our greenhouse benches, so 

 thick that they, stood twenty plants to the square 

 inch. These we began to thin out, to prick in hot- 

 beds, just as the first rough leaf appeared, placing 

 a thousand plants in a 3X6 sash. 



The handling of that quantity was a big job, but I 

 doubt if one plant in a thousand failed, owing, I 

 think, to a plan we used in preparing the bed on the 

 greenhouse bench for the seeds; a plan that I think 

 well worthy of imitation in preparing a bed for 

 seeds, that have to be transplanted, of any kind, 

 whether outside or under glass. We used only two 

 inches in depth of "soil "for our seed-bed, which 

 was made up as follows: For the first layer, about 

 an iuch, we used a good friable loam, run through 

 a half-inch sieve. This was patted down with a 

 spade, and made perfectly level and moderately 

 firm. On this was spread about one-fourth of an 

 inch of sphagnum (moss from the swamps), which 

 had been dried and run through a sieve nearly as fine 

 as mosquito wire, so that it was of the condition of 

 fine sawdust. On top of the moss the ordinary soil 

 was again strewn, to a depth of about three-fourths 

 of an inch. This being leveled, the seed were sown 

 very thickly, and then pi-essed into the soil with a 

 smooth board. On this the fine moss was again 

 sifted, thick enough to cover the seed only. The 

 bed was then freely watered with a fine rose, and in 

 a week every seed that had life in it was a plant. 



Now, this seems a long story to tell about what 

 most consider a very simple operation, but it is 

 necessary to give these details for a thorough un- 

 derstanding of the advantages of the method. 

 When the seeds of most plants germinate, where 

 they are thickly sown, the stem strikes down into 

 the soil, the roots forming a tap-root with few 

 fibers, unless arrested by something. Here comes 

 the value of our one-fourth of an inch of sifted 

 moss, placed three-quarters of an inch from the 

 top. As soon as the rootlets touch the moss they 

 ramify.in all directions, so that when a bunch of 

 seedlings is lifted up and pulled apart, there is a 

 mass of rootlets, to which the moss, less or more, 

 adheres, attached to each. To the practical gai-deii- 

 er, the advantage of this is obvious: the tiny seed- 

 ling has at the start a mass of r )Otlets ready to 

 work,'.which strike into the soil at once. 



The advantage of the moss covering of the seed 

 isinot so apparent, in the matter of afree germinat- 

 ing seed, such as cabbage, as in many others; but 

 in many families of plants it is of the greatest 

 value. For example, last November I took two 

 lots of 10.000 seeds of Ccntaurea Candida (one of the 

 dusty-miller plants so much used for ribbon lines); 

 both were sown on the same day, and exactly in 

 the same manner, in boxes two inches deep filled 

 with soil; but the one lot was covered with the 

 sifted moss, and the other with fine soil. From the 

 moss-covered lot I got over 9000 fine plants, while 

 from that covered by soil only about 30(X1. The 

 same results were shown in a large lot of seeds of 

 the now famous climbing plant Ampclopsis Vcitchii, 

 and in the finer varieties of clematis. The dust 

 from cocoa-nut fiber will answer the purpose even 

 better than sifted moss, when it can be obtained. 

 The reason is plain: the thin layer of sifted moss 

 never bakes or hardens, holding just the right de- 

 gree of moisture, and has less tendency to generate 

 damp or fungus than any substance that 1 know of. 



To he continued Feb. 15, 1S8U, 



