VITALITY OF SEEDS. 



It is noteworthy, too, that all the species that 

 sprang up in this way were common either in the 

 green house or its immediate vicinity, and not in 

 the locality whence the soil was procured. A simi- 

 lar set of experiments was instituted with white 

 Tertiary sand, and the result was the same; then 

 the experiment with Loess soil was repeated again. 

 In this instance the only plant that could possibly 

 spring from a seed in the long buried soil was 

 Festuca pratensis, but this was a delicate plant, 

 probably from a very small light seed that might 

 have been conveyed by the air." In 1885, I made 

 at Grand Kapids, Michigan, two small experiments 

 of the same nature. Three flower pots were filled 

 with sand taken from twelve feet below the surface, 

 and three more with surface soil. Each pot was 

 kept covered with a pane of glass except at the 

 time water was applied. In the three pots from 

 the subsoil no seeds germinated, while each of the 

 other pots produced numerous grasses and other 

 weeds. I also took about 100 pounds of muck 

 from two feet below the surface of a marsh and 

 exposed it in a Wardian case kept continually 

 closed. In this soil one plant, of a kind common 

 on the marsh, germinated. 



A few experiments have been tried on burying 

 seeds in the soil to determine the duration of their 



vitality under such conditions. Professor Beal, of 

 3 



