THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SOWING SEEDS. 605 
changes, if supplied with honey (the food of the 
bee), as germination thrive with the nutriment 
which best supports vegetation. Hence the highly 
azotised condition of the soil on the manured por- 
tion of the field, in the crop of oats already men- 
tioned, prevented the emission of the radicals in 
the germination of the seeds, while that condition 
was most favourable to the vegetation of the plants 
afterward, as was evinced by the superabundance 
of the crop. And, as we must allow no fact to 
pass by us unimproved, we may hence learn the 
reason why highly azotised manures sometimes 
destroy the germination of seeds altogether. 
Guano sown along with the seeds of turnips pre- 
vents their germination ; whereas, when scattered 
over the soil, or buried in the drills beneath the 
seeds, it promotes the vegetation of the plants to 
avery great extent afterwards. The same is the 
case when liquid manure, from tanks in farm-yards 
is applied to soils previously to sowing the seeds. 
I have known turnips sown on ground so treated 
fail to germinate entirely; and by injudicious appli- 
cation of night-soil as a dressing for crops of barley 
I have seen numbers of the grain totally destroyed 
by contact with it, and those which escaped pushed 
on to such a rank vegetation after this destruction 
that they could neither fructify properly nor ripen. 
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