12 MARKET NURSERY WORK 



Lobelia, Ferns, etc. They are exceedingly minute and germinate 

 freely on the surface of the soil if due precautions are taken 

 with regard to moisture and exclusion of a too strong light. 

 With most other flower seeds it suffices if they are just covered 

 with a light coating of soil to prevent their exposure after 

 watering, and for this Ath or even rkth of an inch is ample. 



Germination is accelerated if sheets of brown paper are spread 

 over the seeds to exclude both air and light, but when this is 

 done, as it usually is> care must be taken to remove the paper 

 directly germination can be seen to have taken place ; for, 

 as soon as a plant begins to grow, it needs a certain modicum 

 of light and air, without which it cannot develop healthily. 



PREPARING THE COMPOST 



Seeds and seedlings do not require a compost rich in plant 

 foods. To give it them is as irrational as supplying rich food 

 to a newly-born baby. What they need is a compost prepared 

 on hygienic lines, its texture being such as will encourage the 

 tender microscopic root hairs to push out and do their work, 

 but which contains all the essential elements of plant food in 

 their mildest form porous, a container of heat and moisture, 

 so that the seedlings may not be starved and stunted, nor forced 

 into a soft and unhealthy growth, a prey to the first disease 

 floating around. 



A good general compost, to suit the ordinary run of bedding 

 plants, but which may be modified or corrected to the require- 

 ments of most species, might be as follows : One barrowful of 

 old pasture loam; one barrowful of old soil previously used, 

 but standing at least six months in the open ; one barrowful 

 of well-decayed leaf mould ; a half barrowful of old hotbed 

 manure ; one peck silver sand (coarse) ; half gallon powdered 

 charcoal. This should be heaped and well mixed, then passed 

 through a }-inch sieve, the sif tings to be used to half fill the pots 

 or boxes, and the finer soil to make the seed bed. It is very 

 necessary to sift the compost to remove the larger lumps to 

 which the young roots would otherwise adhere, for this would 

 result in breaking them when transplanting. The J-inch sieve is 

 sufficiently coarse to redeem the texture of the soil from being 



