SAWDUST FOR RISING SEEDS.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2496, 6 April 1882, Page 4

SAWDUST FOR RISING SEEDS.

A contributor to “ Tho Garden ” recommends sawdust for raising seeds and striking cuttings. As a material for placing upon the stages of tho greenhouse to plunge pot plants in it has been tried here and found to answer well, being oleon and neat. It is also probable that from its p -roue qualities it will be found useful as a propagating material ond for raising choice seed.

Although wo have heard much in praise of fresh sawdust for propagating purposes, I never could persuade myself to give it a trial, as it seemed to be just the sort of material that would breed fungi by handfuls when it got heated. I was therefore surprised the other day on looking through the propagating houses of a well known cultivator to find dersns of pans filled with ordinary sawdust just as it had oome from the saw pits, and on many of them seedlings in various stages of development. On enquiring what advantage sawdust possessed over soil and sand, the exclamation was, “Why, bless you, we could not raiso half the number of plants on any Other material than sawdust; in fact, before we found this out we could not raise some of these things at all.” Tho seeds were those of bromeliads, begonias, gloxinias, &o, and many orchids ond nepenthes. I was astonished when I saw how freely such things grew on what I had so strongly objected to, and which now I am, on the contrary, inclined to strongly recommend for raising all seeds that are small ond difficult to manage. At all events, I am quite certain that orchid seeds, the raising of which is of growing importance, will germinate and grow freely in sawdust. Tho seeds were sown on the top of tho sawdust, and over the pan about lin from tho top a square of glass was placed, the pans being tilled quite full. The sawdust ought to bo quite fresh, and if from green timber eo much the better.