22 
AUSTRALIAN PLANTS. 
down, over the hole at the bottom of the pot; then add the smaller 
drainage, whatever it may be—small coke, broken pot-sherds, stones, 
cinders or sifted charcoal, etc. 
The soil should be fairly light and sandy—say, two parts loam, 
one part leaf mould, or old spent hops, and one part sand—coarse river- 
sand being the best. 
If leaf mould or hops are not procurable, soil of a peaty nature 
may be obtained, and this should be well mixed with the other parts 
mentioned, and pressed firmly into the pots with the fingers, up to 
within an inch from the top of the pot. A piece of rounded inch-thick 
board, with central handle attached, sufficiently large to fit inside the 
rim, will be necessary for pressing the surface of the soil evenly down, 
so as to give all seeds an equal chance to germinate. Before sowing, 
the soil should be watered with a finely-perforated “rose-can,” sufficient 
water, in fact, to soak right through to the bottom. 
The seeds should be sown evenly, yet not so thickly that the young 
plants will be likely to crowd each other. In the case of very small 
seeds, the covering soil should be only sufficient to hide them. With 
larger seeds, a little more covering should be put on. but seeds, large or 
small, should never be covered heavily. After the sowing they must 
be watered with a fine “rose-can,” and the pots placed in a cool frame. 
Shading the frames with Hessian, Calico, or other material will 
be necessary always when the sun is hot, but on no account should 
shade of any kind be provided while the weather is dull, as the result 
will be weakly, lanky seedlings. 
As much daylight as possible should be given to the seed-frames, 
and an ample supply of air night and day. A safe plan to adopt on 
fine days, when the sun is not fierce, is to tilt the glass lights off the 
frames. 
No manure of any kind should be used in the soil for seeds of 
Australian plants. 
The same treatment is recommended for pans as for pots, but the 
pans not being so deep as the pots, a drainage of less depth will be 
sufficient. 
Maxes may be used instead of pots and pans . especially when large 
quantities of tree seeds are to be sown, but the boxes should not be 
very large or very deep. Eighteen inches long by ten or twelve wide, and 
six deep is ample size. The bottoms of the boxes should have six or 
nine one-inch holes bored in them, each hole to be covered separately 
with a large piece of pot-sherd (broken-up flower pots), placed inverted 
side down, as in the case of the pots and pans. This direction must 
be strictly adhered to, or the drainage layer will soon become blocked 
with sediment, hence stagnation and sourness in the soil and unhealthy 
plants. 
The spaces intervening between the large sherds at the bottom of 
the box must be filled in with smaller sherds, bits of coke, cinders, or 
