99 



apparatus, th« principal object of which is to obviate, or at least to lessen, 

 the danger from fire, and to increase the germinating power and the good 

 quality of the seed obtained. Seventeen layers of hurdles are so thoroughly 

 warmed and dried by the heating apparatus, containing some fourteen hun- 

 dred square feet of superficies, that the time within which the ' Kleng pro- 

 cess' is completed, by the opening of the cones and the falling out of the 

 seeds is shortened perhaps one-quarter, although the degree of heat em- 

 ployed. is very considerably lower, and consequently the seed thus produced 

 retains far more germiating power, because the whole artificial process cor- 

 responds much more nearly to the natural. For example, the ovens heated 

 by the fires directly, and those warmed by steam, filled at the same time 

 with cones taken from one and the same heap, the seeds being afterwards 

 taken out at the same time, and immediately subjected to*germinating tests 

 conducted in the same manner, yielded in a week, the former 81 the latter 93 

 per cent, of grains capable of germinatioil. Everywhere have the experi- 

 ments in germination made with seed obtained from Keller yielded results 

 exceeding the percentage promised, a fact which has gradually extended the 

 trade of this establishment to the most remote regions. The rapidity with 

 which the space occupied by the hurdles in the steam-kiln is warmed is sur- 

 prising. In one hour the same degree of heat is attained which, by the 

 method hitherto employed, of heating with hot air, was only reached in two 

 ■or three hours. Besides this, the readines with which the temperature and 

 the draft of air can at all times be regulated, is not to be valued too highly ; 

 and still further must be added the fact, that the great risk of fire incident 

 to the former apparatus is entirely done away with. It may well be said 

 that science has here indeed given evidence of progress. 



"The cones, after being freed from the needle-leaves and dirt, are spread 

 upon hurdles which are placed over the ovens and the' steam heating appara- 

 tus. After the process of drying is completed, in the course perhaps of 

 twenty or four and twenty hours, the cones are transferred to the wire-shak 

 ers or screens, adjacent to the ovens, and in these, by means of the rotary 

 motion given to them, the seed is separated from the cones. It has then by 

 the removal of the beards by a particular apparatus adapted to this purpose, 

 to be prepared for cleansing, which is effected by means of sieves aud fan- 

 ning machines. 



" The separation of the seeds from the larch-cones is accomplished by a 

 method which differs somewhat from the above. These cones, when taken 

 from the kilns, are passed through machines expressly devised for this pur- 

 pose, by which they are torn in pieces. The seeds intecmingled with scales 

 and piec«s of wood are then placed in a cleansing apparatus, and their prep- 

 aration completed by means of a stamping mill, which crushes the fragments 

 of wood with which they are mixed. A steam engine moves all the machine- 

 ry in the establishment. On an average, one hundred and sixty Hessian 

 malter (660 bushels) of pine-cones and thirty malter of larch-cones are sub- 



