ITS CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 



neau plan of throwing out the seeds that 

 floated in the water, but it quickly became 

 apparent that this was no test for them, 

 the difference in specific gravity being so 

 slight and variable that half the seeds 

 that floated in the evening would beat the 

 bottom in the morning, and vice versa. 

 With native seeds the only test that seems 

 worthy of mention is that of size and 

 plumpness, the fuller being the more fer- 

 tile. With Tahiti seeds, however, the test 

 may be applied with advantage. Put the 

 seeds in water and reject all that float. 



PREPARATORY 

 TO PL.ANTIG.-AS 

 soon as a row of 

 boxes was in 

 place, I sprink- 

 led them lightly 

 to give consist- 

 ency to the soil 

 for convenience 

 of working. 

 Then I went 

 over them with 

 an implement 

 which, for lack 

 of a better name, 

 I call 



stamper, which, fitting snugly outside the 

 box, guided the appliance as it was low- 

 ered to place. 



INSERTING THE SEEDS. The stamping 

 completed, it was next in order to drop a 

 seed one only in each indentation. 



COVERING. As soon as a box had re- 

 ceived its complement of seeds, a layer of 

 half an inch of the same prepared soil 

 was added, thus covering the seeds se- 

 curely and evenly. The final leveling of 

 the surface was performed by a striker 

 exactly like the one first named only not 



THE PROPAGATING HOUSE. 



A STAMPER. A board nineteen inches 

 square, perforated with auger holes an 

 inch and a half apart, and a round-headed 

 pin (I used old-fashioned clothes-pins) in- 

 erted in each hole. There were one fiun- 

 dred and fourteen pins, and these, when 



THE STAMPER. 



the tamper was applied with considera- 

 ble pressure upon the plastic surface of 

 the soil in the box, left one hundred and 

 fourteen little indentations. Accuracy in 

 the matter of stamping was promoted by 

 a couple of cleats on opposite sides of the 



notched so deeply. The soil as finally 

 leveled was an inch below the rim of the 

 box. The final operation was 



WETTING Which was done as soon as 

 a row of boxes had been planted and lev- 

 eled. With a fine rose sprinkler attached 

 to the hose, I sprayed the boxes until the 

 soil was well moistened. My bed of one 

 hundred and sixty boxes contained a little 

 more than eighteen thousand seeds. 



A PROPAGATING HOUSE. This was al- 

 ready occupied before it was built. I had 

 "anticipated," as the novelists say; but 

 this was done designedly, because I 

 thought it would be easier to build the 

 house over the boxes after they had been 

 planted and arranged than to move the 

 boxes, after planting, into the house. My 

 propagating house was a very simple af- 

 fair, though entirely different from the 

 muslin covering usually prescribed in 

 such cases. I built, in fact, a structure 

 quite similar to a chicken coop, roofed over 

 with lath. The house was twenty feet by 

 thirty in ground dimensions and six feet 



