GERMINATION. 49 



deteriorate so rapidly as to be of no value. Beans are 

 much more liable to injury than peas, ripening during 

 later and less favorable weather for drying, and encased 

 in more succulent pods. Wax pod beans are especially 

 delicate, but when harvested under good conditions and 

 hand picked, should have a vitality of ninety to ninety- 

 five per cent. They, however, deteriorate rapidly, to 

 eighty per cent, the second year, to sixty per cent, the 

 third, and the fourth to twenty per cent. 



Corn varies greatly in germinating force, the flint 

 varieties being the most vital, the dent sorts, the gourd 

 seed sorts and the sugar varieties following in the order 

 named. Hard, flinty corn, grown under good condi- 

 tions, and well cured, should germinate the first year to 

 the extent of ninety per cent., the second year to eighty 

 per cent,, and the third year to fifty per cent. Sugar 

 corns, on the other hand, are very delicate, their vitality 

 being affected by the conditions under w'hich they are 

 matured, husked, cured and packed, and, even after 

 seeming hard and dry, they often become damp if kept 

 in Inilk or in bags piled up. So delicate are sugar corns 

 that they should never be continuously kept in bags or 

 sacks till the January following the harvest, and often 

 not that early. 



There are unauthenticated records of mummy corn 

 from South America having germinated, but the writer 

 doubts the accuracy of the statements. He has an ear 

 of mummy corn from Peru, said to be seven hundred 

 years old, but it is entirely dead, having been subjected, 

 as all otlier mummy com has been, to the heating effects 

 of hot pitch and similar mixtures used in embalming. 

 The claim that corn of vital force has been found in the 

 Egyptian tombs is positively false, as small grain w^as 

 found. Maize was entirely unknown on the Eastern con- 

 tinents before the discovery of America. Credulous tour- 

 ists visiting the Nile regions can always be accommodated, 

 4 



