The Importance of Moisture 
In the case of pans and boxes, a small section of 
floor boarding lightly pressed over the surface 
will accomplish this. In the case of pots the 
flat base of one of like size as the receptacle will 
do quite well. With the seeds sown and covered 
in, all should be watered gently overhead from 
a fine rose can. From this time onwards to the 
vegetating of the seeds it is important that 
neither excess of moisture nor dryness be per- 
mitted to exist. Equally important is it that 
too frequent watering be avoided. To this end 
and to avoid undue evaporation of moisture 
all seed-pans should be protected from strong 
sunlight by shading with brown paper or thin 
tiffany. Given this, a mist-like spray from the 
syringe daily will often suffice for days together. 
It should be done in the early forenoon. A 
good plan with the finest, most lightly covered 
seeds is never to water overhead, but to hold the 
receptacles nearly their full depth in a vessel 
containing water for a minute or two when 
necessary. Once the seeds have commenced to 
grow, the soil should on no account be suffered to 
become dry. Many failures are due to this alone. 
Excess of wet is equally bad, and the “ damping- 
off ” fungus (. Pythium ) resulting, seedlings perish 
wholesale. With the appearing of the seedlings 
the permanent shading should be removed, a 
thinner shade being employed when necessary 
during strong sunlight a few days longer. 
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