7 $ ON THE GERMINATION OF SEEDS. 



sifted tan, manure from a mushroom bed, or some material 

 of this kind; if this mode is adopted, they will keep perfectly 

 sound and fresh. Great care must betaken, that whatever is 

 used for covering the plants must be completely dry. 



A Constant Reader. 



ARTICLE II. 

 ON THE GERMINATION OF SEEDS. 



BY A BOTANIST. 



The subject of the present essay concerns a new method of fur- 

 thering the germination of seeds, in which I have made some ex- 

 periments, which, I think, may be beneficial if better known ; and 

 for the proper understanding of which it will be necessary to pre- 

 face the subject by a short explanation of the theory of the re- 

 production of plants. In flowerless plants, the class Cryptoga- 

 mia of botanists) reproduction takes place by means of homo- 

 genous masses of cellular substances, called sporules or spores ; 

 in ferns, on the back of the leaf; in mosses, in small capsules or 

 urns ; and in lichens and fungi, from tubes buried in the sub- 

 stance of the plants. Unlike the germ of flowering plants, they 

 contain no cotyledon, radicle, or plumule ; and instead of grow- 

 ing uniformly from two constant points of their surface, they are 

 mere masses of cellular substance, and send forth their roots 

 from whatever place happens to have been covered, and the stem 

 from that portion exposed to light. In the more simple forms of 

 fungi and lichens, the subject is involved in such mystery, that 

 many have thence contended for equivocal generation, or a com- 

 mon matter of vegetation, which issues into various forms, ac- 

 cording to accidental circumstances. It is, however, more con- 

 sonant to observation, and to the method and wisdom displayed 

 by the Creator in those parts of his works, more tangible to our 

 senses (especially when we take into consideration the millions 

 of millions of sporules contained in a single fungus, as the com- 

 mon puff ball, or the many hundreds in the common blue fungus 

 of the cheese,) to suppose that they are reproduced by myriads of 

 microscopic pores floating in the atmosphere, dispersed by cur- 

 rents of air, and only called into existence when the accidental 

 circumstances of moisture, putrefaction, &c, necessary to their 

 developement are present. 



