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ON THE GEBMINATIOK OF SEEDS- 131 



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*tiists, who woidd have been far more capable of doing it efficiently 

 than myself; and I now find that M. Alph. DeCandoUe, in his 

 admirable work, " Geographie Botanique/' regrets that such 

 experiments have not been tried; I think, that had>e known 

 even the few facts here to be recorded, some of his opinions on 

 the means of distribution of particular families would have been 

 slightly modified. The Eev. M. J. Berkelev has likewise tested 



fifty 



a report in 



the "Gardener's Chronicle*," to which periodical I have also 

 sent two brief notices on the same subject f- I intend here to 

 give, with Mr. Berkeley's kind permission, au account of our joint 

 experiments. I may premise, that not knowkig, at first, whether 

 ^ne seeds would endure even a week's immersion, I selected a few 

 by simple chance, taking, however, the seeds of different families ; 

 subsequently I have been aided by suggestions from Dr. Hooker. 

 1 must briefly describe how my experiments were tried: the 

 seeds were placed in small bottles, each holding two or three 

 <^uiices of salt water, carefully made according to Schweitzer^s 



^alysis; as both «7/7^ nnd mamnp nnimals have, as is well known. 



Ion 



survived 



^^periment was thus fairly tried. Mr. Berkeley sent his se 

 ^msgate^ tied up in little bags and placed in the sea-water. 

 ^newed ; and they were thus immersed for three weeks, and 

 partially dried, but stiU damp, were sent off, but by accident 

 ^ot unpacked for four days subsequentl; 

 Jn^rsion '' was equivalent to one of more 



of mtr l^^J-xl._ . . „ , 



daily 



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it to one of more than a month." Some 

 ^^„ out of doors in the shade, and were ex- 

 posed to an average weekly temperature of from 35° to 57°,; the 

 other bottles were kept in my cellar, and were exposed to much 

 _®88 variation of tpnmprnfnrp viz to a dailv mean average of 



46° 



temperatur 





iinmersed eighteen different sorts of seeds in salt water, in a tank, 



^ i<^h, from containing much snow, was for six weeks at the tem- 



Perature of 32°, slowly rising for the next six weeks to 44° ; but 



gjf ^^ods thus tested did not seem to withstand the injurious 



J ^.^* of the salt water better than those exposed to a higher but 



• ^f^^^ temperature. I may remark, that amongst the eighteen 



.^^03 of seeds immersed in the cold salt water, there were seeds 



^ a somewhat tender constitution, as capsicum and vegetable 



^^?^ow, but the exposure to the cold irTno degree injured their 



l^"^"^3tion. In the case of some of the seeds which I first tried, 



Se^. Ut, 1855. -^^4 ;, y May 26tli and Jfov. 24th, 1855. 





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