PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY SEEDS. 41 



then take a watering-pot with the finest kind of a rose, 

 and shower the earth with the spray. Keep the box at a 

 temperature as near sixty degrees as possible, taking care 

 to give it a shower of spray only when the surface 

 appears to be dry ; but few seeds will fail to germinate 

 under such conditions. But after the seeds have 

 "brairded," as the Scotch gardeners say, comes another 

 difficulty ; in quite a number of plants, particularly 

 if sown in the house, just as soon as the seed leaf has de- 

 veloped, and before the first rough or true leaves have 

 formed, the seedling is attacked by a minute fungus, 

 that will often sweep off the whole crop in 48 hours, if not 

 attended to. The required attention is, that as soon as 

 there are indications of the " damping off" of these tiny 

 seedlings, they must be carefully taken up and planted 

 out in similar boxes, prepared exactly as the seed-boxes 

 have been ; they may be planted quite closely, not more 

 than half an inch apart, and let their further treatment 

 be exactly the same as in germinating the seeds. In the 

 course of a few weeks they will have grown freely, and 

 they may then be lifted and placed in similar boxes, but 

 wider apart, say three or four inches, or potted singly in 

 two and a half or three-inch pots as most convenient, 

 until such a time as they are to be planted out in the 

 open ground, or to be used otherwise. In this way as 

 great a number of plants may be raised from a 25c. or 50c. 

 packet of seed as would cost $25 or $50 to purchase, be- 

 sides the far greater satisfaction of their being the pro- 

 ducts of your own hands. 



