168 On the Vitality/ of Farm Seeds. 



suirouuding those who live in the couuti-y-tiide. The day's 

 work of the intelligent industrious agricultural labourer may 

 be full of interest — it will be a thousand times more so if 

 he has been properh' educated — for his summer evenings his 

 garden will probably afford that i-ecreation which change of 

 work gives, but in the long hours of winter darkness 'twixt 

 labour and bed, he is at a great disadvantage when compared 

 with his fellow in the towns, as regards opportunities for 

 decent recreation or intellectual occupation of his leisure. 

 Not much imagination is required to enable one to appre- 

 ciate that this very want gives an invaluable opportunity of 

 well-doing to those responsible for Rural Education among 

 village folk. 



K. J. J. Mackenzie. 



School of Agricultvire, 

 Cambridge. 



Deceinhei; 1911. 



ON THE VITALITY OF FARM SEEDS. 



Some experiments on the vitality of seeds were reported by me 

 in the Society's Journal for 181^6 (page 147). As the age of 

 the seeds tested was not certainly known, I decided to under- 

 take a further and more extensive series of experiments with 

 seeds of known age. The objects of these experiments were to 

 test how long, under ordinary conditions, the vitality of certain 

 seeds was maintained, to determine the annual loss of vitality 

 in the seed, to help the farmer and the seed merchant to 

 ascertain the real value of seeds carried over for one or two 

 years, and to investigate the rapidity of germination of the 

 seeds experimented with. 



I secured samples of forty-three seeds, from the harvest of 

 1895, of the kinds more frequently used by farmers. These 

 included six cereals, seventeen grasses, twelve clovers and allied 

 plants, six turnips and allied plants, carrot, and yarrow. The 

 two samples of barley and cocksfoot gave after some years 

 results so nearlj" similar that one of each kind was discontinued. 

 Duplicate samples of clover were used, one of which had been 

 treated to secure the germination of the "hard" seeds at the 

 same time as the bulk. "Hard" seeds occur in all clovers, 

 sometimes to the extent of 15 per cent. They possess no 

 character by which they can be separated fi-oni the others. 

 A successful experiment to get riil of the hardness had been 

 made at the Svalop Agricultural Station, Sweden. It was 

 assumed that the seed-covering in such seeds was so indurated 

 that it prevented the entrance of the moisture necessary to the 



