1906] 



PERSISTENT VITALITY IN SEEDS. 



following letter from General A. W. Greely, now Chief Signal 

 Officer of the Army : 



" War Department, 

 " Washington, D. C, 



" October 2;^, 1905. 

 " ^Ir. Burnet Landreth, Bristol, Pennsylvania. 



''Dear Sir: — Referring to your letter of October 21, I have to 

 state that I took north with me in 1881, in connection with the Lady 

 Franklin Bay Expedition, various seeds. It is my impression, 

 although I am not certain on this point, that they came from your 

 own seed farm. Attempts were made at Fort Conger, 81° 44' 

 north, 64° 45' west, to raise crops of lettuce, cabbage, radish, etc., 

 with the desire of adding fresh vegetables to the dietary of the expe- 

 dition, for their antiscorbutic qualities. 



" Despite considerable care these efforts were not successful, 

 the general opinion being that the soil was too strongly saturated 

 with alkalies to suit these crops. 



" Judging from the experience of my own expedition, the seeds 

 which were brought back by Surgeon Thomas Dedrick must have 

 been subjected nearly every winter since 1883 to temperatures of 

 60° below zero, Fahrenheit, and probably during the summer to 

 temperatures approximating 60° above zero, Fahrenheit. 



" Yours truly, 



"A. W. Greely." 



No seeds, so far as on record, ever had such a prolonged or 

 severe test as to their vitality as these which Lieutenant Greely 

 took to the very far north, seeds which laid at Camp Conger, with 

 other abandoned property, for sixteen years, or until 1899, w4ien 

 the north polar expedition under Lieutenant Peary found the camp. 



Experiments in the laboratory have been made by exposing 

 seeds to the influences of liquid air in temperatures 40° and 50° 

 below zero, but never has the opportunity existed, and possibly 

 there never w-ill, to reclaim seeds after seventeen years' exposure 

 to an arctic temperature every winter of 60" below zero. 



The following are some extracts upon the subject of the reten- 

 tion of germinative force of radish seeds : 



