THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



SEED STEEPS. 



BY CUTHBERT AY. JOIINSONj ESQ., F.R.S. 



The attempt to improve the germination of 

 seeds long since engaged the cultivator's attention. 

 Chemical philosophers soon came to their aid; but, 

 hitherto, with but little success. It is now nearly 

 half-a-century since Sir H. Davy was experimen- 

 talizing in this important direction. Davy soon 

 found what others have since done — that the ger- 

 mination of the seed might be readily hastened by 

 the use of particular solutions. The difficulty did 

 not end there, however. Certain chemical sub- 

 stances which promote early germination, seem to 

 produce a languid after-growth. But, still, some 

 rather good advances have been made. It will be 

 useful, as spring seed-time is now close upon us, if 

 we examine the effect produced by a few of these 

 steeps. This inquiry will hardly be rendered less 

 valuable by the present low value of seed corn. It is 

 evident, indeed, that the less return we receive for 

 our crops, the more necessary it becomes to increase 

 their produce and to diminish the cost of cultiva- 

 tion. 



Davy's failures even, in his seed-steeping trials, 

 were useful; they pointed out the errors which 

 were to be avoided. It was long after his time 

 that the use of superphosphate of lime and certain 

 cencentrated nitrogenous mixtures was introduced. 

 His trials in the farmer's cause were commonly 

 more resembling the alchymicists researches of the 

 olden time than those of modern agricultural 

 chemists. Davy also had the disadvantage of 

 walking over the soil too much alone : he farmed 

 as he was wont to fish on the sunny banks of the 

 Kennett, and the romantic German rivers, either 

 by himself or with other chemists : he had not the 

 advantage of exploring the highly - cultivated 

 modern farms of our island, arm-in-arm with their 

 skilful cultivators. 



It was in recording some of his trials on ac- 

 celerated germination that "he told his readers 

 (E/em. Agri. Chem., 218) that he had found several 

 chemical menstrua which rendered the process pf 

 germination much more rapid when the seeds are 

 steejjed in them ; but the result proved that the 

 practice was inadmissible, for seeds so treated, 

 though they germinated much quicker, did not 

 produce healthy plants, and often died soon after 

 sprouting. This celebrated chemist steeped radish 

 seed, in September, 1807, for twelve hours before 

 they were sown, in a solution of chlorine, and 

 Rimilar seeds in very diluted nitric acid, in very 



diluted sulphuric acid, in a very weak solution of 

 sulphate of iron, and some in common water. The 

 seeds in solutions of chlorine and sulphate of iron 

 threw out the germ in two days, those in nitric 

 acid in three days, in sulphuric acid in five, and 

 those in water in seven days. But in the cases of 

 I)remature germination, though the plume was very 

 vigorous for a short time, yet it became at the end 

 of a fortnight weak and sickly, and at that period 

 less vigorous in its growth than the sprouts which 

 had been naturally developed. Davy thus was led 

 to very correctly conclude that " too rapid growth 

 and premature decay seem invariably connected in 

 organized structures ; and it is only by following 

 the slow operations of natural causes that we are 

 capable of making improvements. The failure of 

 these powerful steeps with one or two root crops 

 deterred Davy from further experiments. It was 

 long after his time that the same acids were more 

 successfully applied to the seeds of certain cereal 

 grasses. In the summer of 1844 a Scotch farmer, 

 Mr. G. Dalziel Ilolra, of Drumlanrig (Trans. 

 High. Soe., 1846, p. 3lG), tried the steeping of seed 

 barley ; and his experiments were reported by him 

 to the late Professor Johnston. He used diluted 

 sulphuric acid before sowing the seed, with a very 

 marked effect on the luxuriance of the crop. In 

 August, 1845, he observed in a letter to the Pro- 

 fessor, " the difference was very marked in all the 

 stages of growth, and in the end the quantity per 

 Scotch acre was eight bushels more on the land 

 sown with the steeped than in that sown with the 

 unsteeped grain." 



My readers will feel with the reporter of these 

 trials (and the farmer never had a more zealous 

 friend than Johnston), that this was a very curious 

 fact — an experiment well worthy of being repeated 

 on other soils, in other districts, and on different 

 varieties of barley. But this experiment is not the 

 only one made about the same time, on the effect of 

 acid steeps on the growth of corn. In the report 

 of the annual meeting at Munich, in 1844, of tlie 

 German agriculturists, similar trials are reported 

 made in Silesia by Tinzmann. In these, barley 

 was steeped for six hours in sulphuric or muriatic 

 acids diluted with forty times their weight of water: 

 about five pounds of acid per acre gave one- 

 fourth more grain and straw. Steeping in pure 

 water gave more straw, but a very slight increase 

 of grain. The same quantity of acid diluted with 



