116 IMPORTANT TIMBER TREES 



Seeds ripening at the close of the growing season may 

 be divided into three classes : (1) Those that can be dried 

 without impairing their vitality ; (2) those that can sub- 

 mit to partial drying without very seriously affecting their 

 vitality, although even partial drying will injure them more 

 or less ; and (3) those that are seriously and, with some 

 species, fatally injured by becoming at all dry. In the first 

 class can be placed the Pines, Spruces, Firs, Balsams, 

 Larches, Hemlocks, Catalpas, Sycamore, Locusts, and 

 Birches. These may all be dried without injury if kept in 

 a cool place where the atmosphere is in a normal condition 

 of humidity, and they will suffer little or no deterioration 

 for a few months, but a warm dry atmosphere may do great 

 damage. While Nature sows all these in the fall, it cannot 

 be truthfully said that a delay until spring in sowing is in- 

 jurious, for this delay and moderate drying seems to be 

 beneficial with some species in fully perfecting the ripening 

 process. Nor can it be said that the artificial care of these 

 seeds by properly storing them is not better than to let 

 them lie on the ground exposed to such conditions of 

 weather as may naturally come, for should there be much 

 wet and comparatively warm weather in the late fall and 

 early spring the seeds might begin germination. Should this 

 occur, as it sometimes does, they would be destroyed by 

 freezing, or decay from excessive moisture, and as these 

 conditions are not determinable it is found that spring sow- 

 ing is more frequently successful. 



In the second class are those which can endure some dry- 

 ing without very serious consequences, but with these drying 

 is not at all necessary and germination is better without it. 

 These are the Ashes, Yellow Poplar, Cucumber, Sugar 

 Maple, and Basswood. The seeds of these may be stored in 

 a dry cool place, the same as the first class, but their vitality 

 is much impaired by that process, and if germination takes 

 place it will be slow and may be delayed for a year or more. 

 All of this class of seeds have a quite hard shell, somewhat 

 impervious to moisture, and instead of being liable to in- 



