616 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SOWING SEEDS. 
forming buds and vegetating. And it would be 
a highly interesting experiment for those who 
have the opportunity of trying it, to ascertain 
whether the small potatoes produced by vital 
action, after germination has been extinct, are 
themselves endowed with the power of germina- 
tion, and can thence produce vegetating plants. 
The method into which we have been led in 
so far discussing our subject, seems to require 
from us here the introduction of an inference 
which must have already crossed the minds of most 
of us, viz: that as sowing and planting on manure, 
or manuring at the same time as sowing and 
planting, are directly contrary to the physiologi- 
cal and philosophical inductions which ought to 
govern us in the science of agriculture; the 
case is more particularly so in the planting of 
potatoes, wherein the manure is not only put 
where its first action must be injurious, but 
where its action afterwards is much limited, 
by being in the exact position from which the 
vegetating roots of the potatoe plants shoot out 
into the surrounding soil, instead of there where ° 
these roots might shoot ¢o it, and reap the full 
benefit of it. 
