—26— 



Fig I. 



-Detail of comer of screen 

 reduced. 



The principle is a combination of a support for the moss and a stream of 

 spray to remove the dirt. It is made as follows: Prepare two shallow sieves, 

 of any size desired (mine are eight inches square), of copper screen, flyscreen 



of 14 meshes to the inch is probably the 

 best and is procurable everywhere. 

 Make two frames of hard wood, one- 

 fourth to three-eighths inch thick by one 

 inch wide. Bevel one edge (the one 

 which is to become the inside of the 

 frame) and fasten the screen to the wider 

 side of the frame, so that the frame 

 slopes inward to the screen, thus avoid- 

 ing corners where loose plants can hide 

 and making the screen more easily 

 cleaned. The object of the frame is to 

 prevent loose plants from floating away, 

 and also to make the screen easy to 

 handle. For very small mosses the screen 

 should be finer, thirty, forty or fifty meshes to the inch or still finer if desired, 

 though minute mosses must be washed with great care or they will vanish through 

 the screen with the dirt. 



Next get a ''spray nozzle" and have it fitted to one end of a piece of strong 

 rubber tubing or garden hose, the other end of which is fitted for being at- 

 tached to the city water supply faucet, either by screwing on, or slipping over 

 and tying. Mine I fitted to a garden hose-coupling so that I can use it as a 

 hose nozzle or screw it on to any faucet fitted for the attaching of hose. 



There are many spray nozzles in the market, intended for use with ma- 

 chines for plant spraying against insect depredations, for whitewashing, etc., and 

 they are all essentially the same, but as they are intended for use with liquids con- 

 taining sediment the opening at the point is too large for our purpose as the 

 spray is too coarse and cone of spray is too wide. The Lowell Specialty 

 Company, of Lowell, Michigan, sends out nozzles with its two-gallon 

 hand tank apparatus which are very easily changed so as to be adapted 

 to this purpose. The distal end of these nozzles is flat with a hole in the 

 center; have this hole closed by soldering a piece of 14 gauge sheet brass 

 over it, then drill a new hole in the center with a number sixty-five twist 

 drill and carefully remove from both sides of the hole any burrs that were left 

 by the drill, and the nozzle is ready to be fitted for attaching to your faucet. 

 The nozzle thus changed throws a very narrow cone of fine spray. The moss 

 is laid on a screen, soil side upwards, and held under the spray — the nearer you 

 hold it to the nozzle the more concentrated is its action, the further away from 

 the nozzle the more gentle. When leaves, pebbles, twigs, etc. make their ap- 

 pearance they must be removed with forceps as they prevent the spray from 

 reaching the dirt under them. When the bottom is clean, lay the other screen 

 over the moss, turn over and hold under the spray, when the moss will leave 



