204 GARDEN AND FARM TOPICS. 



consider a very simple operation, but it is necessary to 

 give these details for a thorough understanding 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 

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

 ling has at the start a mass of rootlets ready to work, 

 which strike into the soil at once. 



The advantage of the moss covering of the seed is not 

 so apparent, in the matter of a free germinating 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 ten thousand seeds of Cen- 

 taurea 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 nine thousand fine plants, while 

 from that covered by soil only about three thousand. 

 The same results were shown in a large lot of seeds of 

 the now famous climbing plant, Ampelopsis Veitchii, 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 degree of moisture, and has less tendency 



