With regard to tomato seeds, the main reason seeds get to be non-viable or lower in germination is two fold. First, dehydration. Soaking in just plain water with a few drops of blue stuff such as MG or similar or adding a few drops of liquid seaweed or fish emulsion also helps b'c those products are high in nitrate ion and that's known to be involved in the germination process. Soak seed up to 12-18 hours, stirring from time to time so the seeds sink is important. Second, some varieties, such as most heart varieties appear to be viable for shorter times than non-hearts. If tomato seeds are stored properly seeds remain good for a long time. Most who list seeds in the SSE YEarbooks are on a 5 year schedule, meaning that new seed production is then needed/ If I have seeds that are 5 yo or less I sow them directly and expect at least 50% and often much more with the 5 yo seeds. Seeds that are 5 to maybe 12 yo I double sow. Beyond 12 yo depending on how rare the variety is I may do the soaking but I've used other methods such as Microwave, green tea, wet towel in baggie and more, and the simple water soak with added nitrate has always been the best for me. And I did use controls when fooling around with these various methods. ( smile) As I said above, GA gives one rangy tall seedlings that are not what you want, even if you do get the seeds to germinate. The problem with purchased seeds is that you don't know what the seed age is. There may be a packed for date on the seed pack but that says only when the seed was packed, not when it was produced. My record to date is waking up non-viable 22 yo seed but the documented record is waking up 50 yo seed. Carolyn

Usually there is a maker's mark or initials stamped into it somewhere. The abbreviations can be very tiny, you may have to clean the brass to detect it. Casey

Hi someone2010 The divisions on the ruler are in inches with lines marking the quarter inches. It seems not to be finely made in the images but the inches are absolutely accurate compared to a modern inch ruler. The folding mechanism is very beautifully and cleverly done, and all by hand which really makes it so special for me. The box contained an old draftsman's compass, the type for drawing circles with an interchangable lead holder for drawing circles or simply to have two points for setting out distances. Now lazygardens mentions it these types of instruments were used on ships for mapreading - I think you may have cracked it...but would it be accurate enough for mapping or map reading? As someone2010 says, it does not have many intermediate lines...

i would like to start a class for kids and am looking for ideas. one person at fabric counter said to have a mother-daugthers so i wouldn't have so much worry about them cutting themselves with the rotary cutter.kids are idealistic and have so much energy and their brains work better then us old folks. i thought we could do a linus project also.i just feel a lot of the problem with kids today is they don't think about anyone but themselves due to many circumstances. i feel we have a need to help others and when we don't fill that we become like the dead sea. it all comes in and nothing goes out and damange to our souls takes place. i don't blame it on the kids it's the mind set of us older ones. we want everything for our kids we didn't have etc. anyway i'm looking for suggestions.feel free to give some.i have wanted to do stuff like this and now i'm retired i can. i also want to say this is the greatest community of people.dj