AND THE WILDERNESS BLOSSOMED 



or cigarettes. A collection of the ordinary tin 

 cracker-boxes, in different sizes, you will often 

 find useful. Here, too, remember to mark your 

 seeds promptly. Write the name on a slip of 

 paper, and always drop it into the box before 

 you put a pod therein. 



The best seeds of course are also those which 

 are fully ripe. You will notice when the capsule 

 has turned brown, and is just beginning to crack 

 open, and this is the proper time to secure 

 your seed. Taken earlier the seeds are not yet 

 thoroughly dry, or even not quite ripe, and un- 

 less given sunshine and fresh air are apt to 

 mould and prove worthless. If you delay too 

 long, you will find in many cases that the seeds 

 are nearly or quite gone, and that you are gather- 

 ing only empty pods. The best time to gather 

 seeds is probably soon after a period of cloudy 

 weather, when the sun has but just dried the 

 pods oflF sufficiently, for then you will find 

 many pods full of seed. You cannot easily 

 dislodge small seeds from a damp pod, but 

 when the pods are thoroughly dry you can 

 shake them out with little trouble, and with- 

 out the labor of dividing or crushing each in- 

 dividual pod. 



254 



