Cultivation of Arable Land. Choice of Seed. 55 



of feed. The neceflity of this cuftom may, however, probably a rife from the nog- 

 led of making ufe of fuch feed as is full-bodied and perfectly fed and ripened. 



In oppoiition to an opinion (rated by Mr. Kerrich, that &quot; out of a coomb of dif- 

 coloured barley, more than two bufhels will not in mod inftances work on the 

 malting floor;&quot; and that he is of opinion, it cannot be relied upon for feed, ct as 

 the feeds do not vegetate belter in the ground than they do upon the floor ; an intelli 

 gent Norfolk farmer determined to try the vegetative powers of barley in different 

 tints of difcoloration ; and found, as he expected, that the mere circumfiance of 

 difcoloration had nothing to do with the procefs of germination when the feed is 

 committed to the ground. If the corculum, the fpeck of vitality, be not injured, 

 the feed, he believes, will invariably germinate : the cotyledons are merely organs 

 of nutrition, which convey the oily farinaceous matter of which they are compo- 

 fed, to the infant plant : if the nutritious fubftance be liberally communicated, 

 which we fuppofetobe the cafe when the cotyledons are large, plump and firm, 

 the plant, it is obvious, will thrive better and more rapidly, than when the coty 

 ledons, fhrunk and fhrivelled, diftribute a pamrfionious mucilage. Still, howe 

 ver, the deficiency of natural nourimment in this latter cafe may, he is perfuaded, 

 be in a great meafure fupplied by imparting an additional fecundity to the foil. 

 He felected from a heap of barley, which lay in his barn, twenty kernels, the moft 

 thin and meagre which he could find ; this was during the fevercft part of winter. 

 He planted them in fome very rich mould, and kept the pot in his ftudy ; where 

 every one of them germinated, tardily indeed at firft, but the radical fibres foon 

 fpread, and the plants grew luxuriantly. In his garden he afterwards planted fome 

 of the blackeft barley he could find, a large proportion of which grew, and was 

 healthy: the corculum of fome few kernels had been injured, probably rotted by 

 exceflive rains, and thofe kernels made no effort to germinate. 1 * 



In contradiction of thefecond pofition, he f * picked from the floor of a neighbour 

 ing maltfter fixty kernels of barley, which having been in the heap (as he was af- 

 fured by himj for nineteen days, had refufed to malt. He told him, perhaps, 

 truly, that thofe kernels would certainly not vegetate, however long they remain 

 ed on his floor. He planted them in his garden ; and out of fixty, forty-five 

 grew as rapidly and vigoroufly as he ever faw barley in his life. In fhort, it id 

 evident that warmth and moifture, however efTential to germination, are not of 

 themfelves fufficient to induce it. Is it not probable, fays the experimenter, that 

 the corculum of thefe kernels which refufed to germinate on the floor, was ftimu- 

 lated into action by the larger proportion, of oxygen which the mould of the gar- 



