CHAPTER I. 



SOWING. 



That the seed should have a perfectly developed em- 

 bryo, and have arrived to nearly perfect ripeness, is 

 essential to its being able to germinate. The rea- 

 son for this is obvious : the young plant requires for 

 its earliest nourishment a peculiar compoimd, usually 

 saccharine matter ; and this compoimd, in accordance 

 with that universal fitness of things which demon- 

 strates the wisdom of God, is always generated by 

 the combined agency of heat, moistm'e, and oxygen 

 gas, from the substances most abmidant in the fully 

 ripened seed. Let barley be the example. Saccha- 

 rine matter is essential for the first nourishment of 

 the radicle and plumule,^ and into such saccharine 

 matter is starch converted, by the combined agency I 

 have named. It is starch, therefore, that is the chief 

 constituent of the seed. But if barley be gathered 

 immature, and dried, the chief ingredient is mu- 

 cilage or gum ; and this, if exposed to the essentials 

 for germination, heat, moisture and oxygen gas, in- 



^ The thread-like sprouts, becoming afterwards the root and 

 stem, are so named. 



