To obviate this, and to insure better and more prompt germination, it is best to keep the seed nuts in moist sand or clay during the winter months. Procure a sufficient number of shallow boxes or trays; three feet by one and a half feet by six or eight inches will answer nicely. These are to be used in stratifying the nuts. The earth to be used should preferably be good clean sand, free from organic matter, or, if this cannot be secured, clay will answer. Place a layer of the earth about one inch deep in the bottom of the boxes, then a single layer of nuts, then a two-inch layer of earth, and so on in alternating layers until the boxes are filled. These should then be slightly moistened and set aside in a sheltered place and covered with pine straw, leaves or straw. In spring, when germination has just begun in the nuts and the tiny sprouts are beginning to appear, they should be planted in rows. The ground should be deeply plowed, well broken up, pulverized, and made moderately rich. Ground which produced a heavy crop of cowpeas, velvet beans or beggarweed the previous season is excellent for the purpose. Farm-yard manure, well decomposed and plowed in the autumn previous, is one of the best manures to use. The ground should be lined off in perfectly straight rows four feet apart, running east and west, that, the buds may be inserted on the north side. The nuts should be planted four or five inches deep, depending upon their size and the character of the soil. Large nuts should be planted deeper than small ones, and in heavy soils nuts may be planted somewhat nearer the surface than in light sandy ones. The rows may be opened with a small turning plow, or, for lesser areas, with a shovel. Place the nuts, a foot apart, carefully in the bottom of the furrow, cover with a hoe, roll the ground if the weather is dry, and then scarify the surface with a weeder or a light harrow to prevent evaporation of the soil moisture. Or the ground may be mulched with pine-straw, grass, leaves or other suitable material. If no mulch is applied, then the surface of the ground Should be cultivated shallow from time to time. Some propagators have adopted the plan, with good results, of planting the nuts in the nursery rows, in late fall. CULTIVATION OF NURSERY SEEDLINGS.