BOTAXY. 325 



ON THE PRODUCTIVENESS OF THE WHEAT PLANT. 



SojfE curious experiments on the productiveness of the wheat plant 

 have been instituted at Buckingham, England, by a gentleman by the 

 name of Stowe. On the 13th of July, 1850, a single grain of wheat 

 was sown in the garden ; the plant came up in ten days, and grew 

 luxuriantly till the 13th of September ; it was then taken up and 

 divided into slips, and replanted. The plants lived and flourished till 

 the 13th of November, when they were again raised, divided and 

 replanted, and suffered to remain till the 16th of April of the present 

 year. The weather then becoming unfavorably w T et, they were all 

 taken up again and divided into not less than 114 plants ; these, being 

 planted, were permitted to stand till the month of August, when they 

 were productive of the amazing number of 520 ears of wheat, many of 

 them of full size, containing more than 50 grains of corn. Whether 

 the result of this trial will strengthen the opinion of those who contend 

 for the thin sowing of wheat in ordinary field cultivation, must be left 

 to the judgment of more practical agriculturists ; but of the amazing 

 productiveness of the wheat plant, under such treatment, any one may 

 easily satisfy himself by repeating the experiment. 



VITALITY OF SEEDS. 



PROF. HEXSLOW, at the British Association, stated, that during the 

 last year he had planted several seeds sent to the committee appointed 

 to report on this subject, and out of those he had planted two had 

 grown. They both belonged to the order Leguminosas, and one was 

 produced from seed seventeen, and the other from seed twenty years 

 old. On the whole , it appeared that the seeds of Leguminosce retained 

 their vitality longest. Tournefort had recorded an instance of beans 

 growing after having been kept a hundred years, and Wildenow had 

 observed a sensitive plant to grow from seed that had been kept sixty 

 years. The instances of plants growing from seeds found in mummies 

 were all erroneous. So also was the case, related by Dr. Lindley, of a 

 raspberry bush growing from seed found in the inside of a man buried 

 in an ancient barrow. 



Mr. Babington related a case in which M. Fries, of Upsaia, suc- 

 ceeded in growing a species of Hieracium from seeds which had been 

 in his herbarium upwards of fifty years. Desmouiins recorded an 

 instance of the opening of some ancient tombs in which seed was 

 found, and on being planted the} 7 produced species of Scabiosa and Helio- 

 tropium. Recently some seeds from Egypt were sown in Cambridge, 

 which were thought to have germinated ; but on examining them they 

 were covered with a pitchy substance, which had evidently been 

 applied subsequent to their germination, and thus they had preserved 

 the appearance of growth through a long period of time. Dr. Cleg- 

 horn stated that after the burning or clearing of a forest in India, inva- 

 riably there sprung up a new set of plants which were not known in 

 the spot before. 



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