Natural History, 211 



20. On the Duration of the Germinative Power of the Seeds of 

 Plants, particularly of the Cucurbitacea. — The Society for the 

 encouragement of horticulture in Prussia proposes from time to 

 time certain questions, to which it directs the attention of horticul- 

 turists. These small problems are an excellent method, on the one 

 hand, of tracing a route for practical men, and of awakening in 

 them an idea of easy researches of which they had not thought ; 

 on the other, of collecting a great number of observations, and of 

 experiments on obscure or contested points of horticulture *. 



The following is one of the questions proposed by the society : — 

 " Is it true that the seeds of the melon and cucumber, being pre- 

 served for some years, yield a greater abundance of fruit?" Most 

 observers remark that the plants obtained from the seeds of the 

 preceding year produce many leaves, but few fruitful flowers, and 

 almost entirely males ones ; but that these same seeds, dried by 

 the heat of the sun, or of a stove, yield more fruitful plants, and 

 that it is particularly at the end of some years they acquire this 

 property. These experiments vary from three to twenty years. 

 The heat of the human body may be useful, but it must be used 

 with discretion, or the germinative power of the seeds will be 

 destroyed. 



The author of this article has made experiments of the same kind 

 on balsams and gillyflowers. He sowed at the same time some 

 seeds of the last, some which were of the preceding year, others 

 some years previous. The first came up much sooner than the 

 second, and gave only simple flowers ; the others produced only 

 sixteeu out of several hundred plants. 



M. Schmidt employs seed from five to twelve years old ; those 

 of twenty years did not grow. Professor Sprengel of Halle says 

 he obtained no fruit from seed a year old. M. d'Arenstorff, of 

 Drebleau, obtained fruit most remarkable for their flavour and size 

 from seed of twenty years old. The observations of Professor 

 Treviranus, of Berlin, have afforded the same result. A vigorous 

 vegetation produces, in monoecious plants, male flowers in the 

 greatest abundance, sometimes even exclusively. This has been 

 proved, as far as regards the Cucurbitacese ; but seeds which are 

 too old produce an opposite result. He has seen seeds of five years 

 old produce only female flowers ; they were fecundated by male 

 flowers of another bed, and yielded fruit. 



M. Voss, head gardener at Sans Souci, sowed on the 7th of 

 February, 1827, twenty-four seeds of a Spanish melon of the year 

 1790, being consequently thirty-seven years old, and he obtained 

 eight plants which gave good fruit. This experiment, the most re- 

 markable of all, will excuse our citing eleven others which he made 



* Although the results obtained by these questions are designed solely 

 for the advancement of horticulture, they should, in the first place, attract 

 the attention of physiologists. — Note by the Editor. 



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