12 LIFE OF A TREE. 
some, death occurs in a few years; but in the 
following wonderful instances seeds have attained 
a greater age than twice the life of the oldest 
man that ever lived. Dr. Lindley says:— 1 
have before me three plants of raspberries, which 
have been raised in the garden of the Horti- 
cultural Society from seeds taken from the 
stomach of a man, whose skeleton was found 
thirty feet below the surface of the earth, at the 
bottom of a barrow * which was opened near 
Dorchester. He had been buried with some 
coins of the Emperor Hadrian, and it is therefore 
probable that the seeds were sixteen or seven- 
een hundred years old!” Yet, on being planted, 
and carefully tended, they came to life and bare 
fruit. 
A more remarkable anecdote of the vitality of 
seeds is related. In the folds of cloth which 
the ancient Egyptians used to wrap round the 
bodies of their dead after embalming them, a few 
grains of wheat were found by an Egyptian 
traveller. The age of the mummy, as their em- 
balmed body is called, was probably at least 
from two to three thousand years! This gentle- 
* A barrow is an ancient form of hollow underground tomb. 
