330 N. n. STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



cannot now be said to have any claim wliatcver to be re- 

 ceived as even a possible hypothesis; all the facts on -o-hich 

 it claimed to rest, having either been themselves disproved 

 or having been found satisfactorily explicable on the gen- 

 eral principle, omne vivuni ex ovo, (everything living comes 

 from an egg.) Thus the appearance of animalcules in in- 

 fusions of decaying organic matter, the springing up of fun- 

 gi in spots to which it would have been supposed that their 

 germs could not have been conveyed, the occurrence of 

 entozoa in the bodies of other animals into which it seemed 

 almost beyond possibility that their eggs could have been 

 introduced, with other facts of a like nature, may now 

 be accounted for, without any violation of probability, by 

 our increased knowledge of the mode in which these orga- 

 nizations are propagated." 



If these views are correct, and I believe them to be 

 more strictly in accordance with known laws of nature than 

 any other — then, Avherever we find plants of a particular 

 kind springing up, we know that they come from seeds pro- 

 duced by similar plants which have at some time and place 

 existed previously. 



We may not be able, in particular instances, to account 

 for the produce of particular seeds. Yet we cannot re- 

 sist the conclusion that they have come from similar plants, 

 growing at some time in the past, either uj)on that very 

 spot, or upon some spot probably not very distant, from 

 which they have been brought by some simple natural 

 agency. 



Do seeds 7'C7iiain a long time dormant, and yet preserve 

 their vilality ? 



Many well known facts prove this. It is well known 

 that our most common seeds will preserve their vitality for 

 a long tiuic, if tliey are pUiced in circumstances wliich 

 neither call thfir })ropcrties into active exercise, nor occa- 

 sion their decay. If kept dry, at a low temperature, and 

 especially if the air be excluded, there seems to be no limit 



