REFORESTATION ON THE NATIONAL FORESTS. 13 



EXTRACTING THE SEED. 1 



After the cones have been thoroughly dried, the next step is to 

 extract the seed. Merely to rake over the cones as they are drying 

 in the sun or kiln is the simplest but least efficient method. It is 

 most successful with western yellow pine, but even with this species 

 better results can usually be obtained by shaking. The practice of 

 placing cones in sacks and beating them with clubs to loosen the seed 

 has also proved unsatisfactory. It requires too much time and yields 

 only a little additional seed, which is apt to be of poor quality. 



Cone Shakeks. 



To secure the maximum amount of seed, therefore, some method 

 of shaking to release the seed from the opened cones must be used 

 in nearly every case. Several kinds of cone shakers have been de- 

 vised by members of the Forest Service. One in common use is 

 made from a large dry-goods box, about 4 by 3 feet, provided at one 

 end with a door made of slats so spaced as to permit only the closed 

 cones to fall through. (PI. IV, fig. 1.) This door is fitted also 

 with a removable wire screen of such sized mesh as to permit only 

 the seed to escape, ordinarily | inch. The box is built on a pole as 

 an axis and swung between two trees, or else mounted on a windlass. 

 By a crank attached to one end of the axis the apparatus may be 

 revolved and the seed loosened. Slats nailed lengthwise inside the 

 box, or loose blocks of wood placed in the box with the cones, in- 

 crease the jarring effect. After the seed has escaped to a sheet of 

 canvas placed beneath the shaker, the screen should be removed and 

 shaking continued in order to separate the still closed cones from the 

 larger sized open ones. The closed cones can then be returned to the 

 house for further drying. 



The cone shaker shown in Plate IV, figure 2, is a modification of 

 the common potato sorter. It has been used extensively for yellow- 

 pine cones, and, with slight modifications, for lodgepole-pine cones. 

 The shaker is composed of a parallelopiped 16 feet long and about 4 

 feet square at the ends, constructed on a shaft of 2-inch pipe long 

 enough to provide for the supports at either end and for a crank 

 with which to revolve it. Poultry net of f-inch mesh for yellow- 

 pine cones and hardwood cloth of ^-inch square mesh for lodgepole 

 cones is stretched over the frame. The whole apparatus is made 

 with a fall of about 6 inches, the end of the hopper being elevated 

 that much to cause the cones to travel automatically through the 

 shaker to the other end, where they fall out. The contrivance may 

 either be operated by hand or by a gasoline engine. Cone shakers 



1 For more complete details, see Forest Service Circular 208, " Extracting and Cleaning 

 Forest Tree Seed." 



