Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/83

 How the Forest Service Gathers Pine Seeds

Nature has tucked away the pine seeds so care- fully that it requires ingenuity to extract them

��GATHERING seed of various species of pine trees is an industry carried on in the great national forests of the West by the United States Forest Ser- vice. The seed is used for reforestation on the government reservations and is also sold to private persons for the same purpose.

Each autumn the cones are both gathered in large quantities by employes of the Forest Service and bought by the bushel from persons who make a business of gathering them. When gathered, the cones are closed and hard and contain much sap. They are placed in bins under cover and allowed to dry out for a period of two months or more. The opening process is hastened by subjecting the cones to a heat of about one hun dred degrees Fahrenheit for a period of from one to three days.

The cones are placed in wire-bottomed trays, about two feet wide and three feet long, and the travs are stacked on

��The cones are gathered in large quantities and stacked in wire-bot- tomed trays to dry

��racks in a room where the drying process is carried on. The drying causes the bracts or petal-like parts of the cone to spread out, thereby-releasing the seed.

In order to shake the seed from the cone a churn-like device is utilized. It consists of a box with ends of boards and sides of woven-wire screen. Through this passes a wooden axle supported by uprights. By means of a handle at one end of the axle the churn is revolved rapidly; the seeds are shaken from the cones and fall through the wire screen to a sheet underneath.

In order to separate the seed from their "wings," which are broken off by the violent churning of the cones, a fanning- mill is utilized.

the southwestern sec- tion of the country- the use of a dr^'ing room or kiln is not necessar>^ in order to open the cones and extract the pine seed. The cones are placed in shallow bins in the open air. Ex- posure to the intense heat of the sun soon opens them up, where- upon they are put through the churn.

���A churn like device is revolvred rapidly to extract the seeds from the dried cones

��Pouring the cones into the churn. 1 he seeds fall into a sheet-lined bin below

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