94 THE SEED-GROWER. 
that seed will be likely to spill or shell out in course of 
ripening, cloths or sheets of heavy paper may be 
spread under the plants close to the stem. In the fore- 
noon after the dew is off, and at intervals during the 
day, shake plants well to loosen seed and cause it to 
drop on the cloth or paper beneath. This seed may be 
removed in the evening, and the paper or cloth re- 
placed in the morning. 
Cleaning may be performed with a hand-sieve of 
suitable mesh, or by using, if one be at hand, a seed- 
cleaner, of which there is a special small size made for 
flower seeds. 
Market.—Every American is a lover of flowers, and 
every American home having a piece of ground, no 
matter how small, is sure to have its flower bed; the 
vegetable garden may go, but there must be flowers. 
As may be imagined, there is an extensive trade in 
America for flower seeds, it amounting in the country 
at large to many millions of packets annually. 
The demand for home gardens runs principally to 
annuals, those varieties which flower the first year from 
seed and then perish. The purchases by florists, who 
are usually heavy buyers, consist mostly of the choicer 
biennial and perennial sorts. Therefore, all grades and 
kinds of flower seeds are carried in stock by seedsmen 
everywhere. 
The industry of flower seed growing in America 
while it is improving fast, is not yet at the highest ad- 
vanced stage. In fact, at this time Europe produces 
the finest flower seeds in the world, and the American 
seed trade is consequently obliged to depend at present 
almost entirely on that source for the choicest seeds of 
the most approved varieties. 
There is nothing to be wondered at as regards this 
