CH. I.] SOWING. 15 



sowing. Then again in the case of rose seed, — at all 

 events, in the case of that of the dog rose, — if the hips 

 he allowed to endure the frosts of winter before they 

 are gathered, their seed vail geiToinate in much less 

 time than is named by M. Adanson. This lesson 

 was probably taught the gardener by nature, for the 

 hips of roses never shed their seed in this country 

 until they have been frosted. 



The gardener should always bear in mind, that it 

 would be a very erroneous conclusion, because a seed 

 does not geiTuinate at the accustomed time, that 

 therefore its vegetating powers ai'e departed. No 

 two seeds taken from the same seed-vessel ger- 

 minate precisely at the same time ; but, on the 

 contrary, one will often do so promptly, while its 

 companion seed will remain dormant imtil anotlier 

 year. M. De Candolle relates an instance where 

 fresh tobacco seedhngs continued to appear annually 

 for ten years on the same plot, though no seed was 

 sown after the first sowing ; and the same phenomenon 

 usually occurs for two or three years, when the seed 

 of either the peony or hawthorn are sown. Why 

 one seed is more easily excited than another is as 

 yet unexplained, but the wisdom of this one of many 

 pro-visions for avoiding the accidental extinction of a 

 species in any given locality is readily discerned. 

 An ungenial spring may destroy the plants from 

 those seeds which first germinated, but this could 



