VITALITY OF SEEDS. 29 



placing them under the glass of the green-house or grap- 

 eiy, and then count the number of plants which appear. 



But with all this care, complaints are often made that 

 the seed was not good, seed that I knew was good, be- 

 cause it had been proved so, under my own inspection, by 

 an infallible test. 



There are various causes of the failure of good seed. 

 One of these is, the injudicious manner in which an at- 

 tempt is made to start it in a hot-bed. In consequence 

 of the seeds having been sown upon the beds in a rank 

 heat, they are prematurely forced up and easily destroyed, 

 by being pent up without air as soon as the plants begin 

 to appear above ground. 



I once planted half an acre of Carrots, rather late in the 

 season. I examined the field one morning, and observed 

 the carrots were breaking through the ground finely. The 

 day had been a very warm one, with a scorching sun, and 

 the ground rather dry; at night I examined the field 

 again, and to my surprise could not, at first sight, sec any 

 vestige of the young plants I had noticed in the morning, 

 but upon a close inspection, found them all withered and 

 brown, burnt by the sun. In this way the plants are often 

 destroyed before any notice has been taken of them. 

 Young flower-plants are often destroyed in the same way 

 as were the carrots. Many young plants are destroyed by 

 a minute black fly, or some other small insect, just as they 

 emerge from the ground. 



Small seeds are often planted so deep that they cannot 

 push through the soil, while some large seeds are not 

 planted deep enough. A friend has suggested the import- 

 ance of giving some directions in this work, relative to the 

 subject of planting seeds as to their depth, time of plant- 

 ing, and the time required for the plants to appear above 

 ground. In answer to these inquiries, it may be stated, 

 that in regard to the depth of planting, something de- 



