97 



MisBissippi river ; and that they be planted in well sheltered positions. They 

 send down a strong tap root, and if they are designed to be transplanted they 

 must be taken up at one year of age; but until it ia determined that they 

 can resist the cold winters, it is best to let them grow without being tak- 

 en up. 



HOW THE SEEDS OP THE CONIFERS, &o., ARE COLLECTED. 



The seeds of the birch require but a short notice, as more will be learned 

 of the manner of gathering and saving them in describing thoes of the 

 coniferEe. The nutlets of the birch are produced in small catkins, which open 

 on the ripening of the seeds, in the month of June, and the naked nutlets, 

 being then broadly winged all around like the seeds of the elm, but much 

 smaller and lighter, float away in the breeze to find a new home at a distance 

 from the parent tree. They can only be gathered by picking these catkins,, 

 and letting therti dry and open, where the seeds will be saved. They can be 

 planted immediately in damp sandy soil, or leaf mould, and being scarcely 

 covered, and kept moist, they germinate and make a growth not unlike the 

 elm the same year. Or they may be mixed with sand and kept till next spring. 

 This last method only has the effect to lose one year's growth. 



The seeds of the order salicacese, which in eludes the willows and poplars, 

 are produced on those tree only, which bear the fertile flowers ; and are 

 found in pods of various forms of round and oblong-ovate. A cottony ap- 

 pendage is attached to each seed, sufficiently large, when expanded to bear 

 it up ; and these pods must be picked before they open, in order to save 

 the seed. These seeds also ripen in June, and should be planted immediate- 

 ly. The whole of this order grow readily from large cuttings ; and, if care 

 is taken, none but those trees bearing the sterile flowers need be propagated, 

 as is now the case with the Lombardy poplar, and so the pest of the cotton' 

 is avoided. 



The seeds of the pines and other coniferas, have to be gathered in a some- 

 what similar manner. Whether these cones have matured their seeds in one 

 or two summers, all ripen their seeds in October and November, and they 

 must be gathered in the cones. When the cones have opened their scales, 

 the seeds in most instances being armed with a broad wing will carry them^ 

 selves to a great distance off, where they cannot be found by human sight. 



The inhabitants of Griesham, a German village in the pine forests near 

 Darmstadt, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, were the first to collect these 

 cones, in order to save the seeds for market. They placed the cones in the 

 rooms of their houses, where the warmth and dryness of the air caused tlio 

 cones to open, and the seeds to fly out and they were caught on the floor- 

 Thus nearly every villager became a seedsman on a small scale, for the sup- 

 ply of his own neighborhood. 



From that simple beginning has sprung the large establishments in Ger- 

 Rep. 1. 



