Effect of Boiling Water on Seeds. 101 



been lost by drying or age, but in others, as in boiling and 

 scalding, the action seems mysterious. However curious the 

 subject, or inexplicable the mode, yet the pleasant fact re- 

 mains, and, in lieu of disappointment, by some one of these 

 modes, the careful experimenter is enabled to raise to success- 

 ful culture, species of plants, the seeds of which he may have 

 had in his possession for years, and been unable to excite to 

 a growth. 



In the case of the harder kinds of seeds, those covered with 

 a very tough, or else with a very indurated shell or husk, for 

 instance, the Acacioe and Mimosas, it docs not seem so surpris- 

 ing that the action of extreme heat should be so well sustained. 

 The extremely hard-wooded shell of the Havv?-tliorn seed, 

 (Crata3^gus.) it is well known, enables that plant to resist 

 vegetative influence for one, two or more years: and although, 

 if sown as soon as ripe, many of the seed will appear on the 

 next spring, yet straggling plants may be seen in the seed 

 bed, rising from the original sowing, for successive seasons. 

 So the seeds of the Honey locust (Gleditsch/a) are of the 

 same character in process of vegetation. Subjected to boiling, 

 the seeds of Acacia lophantha will sustain no injury when 

 boiled fifteen minutes, as we have repeatedly observed: nay, 

 the young plants seem to grow the more rapidly from seed 

 subjected to that length of the process, than those from seed 

 not so long boiled. Many curious leguminous seeds are al- 

 most annually brought from tropical countries, either gathered 

 from wild plants, or sent from botanical collections, which are 

 thrown away by ignorant culturists, into whose hands they 

 may chance to fall, or sown without any reference to these 

 well known facts in vegetable economy, and are thus never 

 destined to see the light. To the Acacia and Mimosa tribe 

 especially, (of the great natural order Leguminosae,) our green- 

 houses and collections of living plants are very much indebt- 

 ed for rare elegance of foliage or exquisite beauty of flower, 

 or fragrance of blossom, or general contour of shape ; and in 

 some such collections, some one species or variety may be 

 rare. 



To increase the chance of possessing some newer or rare 

 kind, it surely would repay the amateur or common gardener 

 for whatever trouble or patience he might exercise to insti- 

 ll* 



