102 Effect of Boiling Water on Seeds. 



tute many experiments founded on a little scientific knowl- 

 edge to cause foreign seeds, which often fall into his hands, to 

 germinate. No one is the loser by such operations : for even 

 failure does not always detriment the general cause of culture; 

 but the rather enables a further experiment to be better made. 

 And patience, as well as experiment, is often found to be an 

 excellent paymaster in the long run : not only, as many have 

 known, in waiting for the blossoming of their rarer plants, 

 but also in the waiting for the germination of their seeds, 

 after months have elapsed since they ordinarily and normally 

 should have appeared above the soil. In our own very humble 

 and private experience, we have known the value of such a 

 virtue connected with floricultiiral science: and before our 

 eyes, at this moment, are some seedling Ziliacea? of rarer 

 kinds, for whose appearance we waited more than a year ; 

 although, in the same sowing, were others, for aught we know, 

 as difficult of vegetation, which appeared above the soil in a 

 few weeks. 



The most singular feature by far of the power seeds possess 

 of resisting heat by boiling water (to return to our subject 

 matter,) is to be noticed in the fact of seeds not furnished 

 with strong and woody exteriors or shells ; and of those of 

 less durable envelopes ; of this latter, for instance, the seeds of 

 the Rubi, (Raspberry,) of which Lindley, in his Theory of 

 Horticulture^ p. 157, tells us that he was acquainted with the 

 germination of some seeds of this fruit '' picked from a jar of 

 jam, and which must, therefore, have been exposed to the 

 temperature of 230°, the boiling point of syrup." 



Induced, at several times, by these accounts, and similar 

 found elsewhere in works of Horticulture, to institute some 

 experiments on the vitality of seed, we tried to see what suc- 

 cess one might have on four several sorts, which v/e subject- 

 ed to hot water raised to the boiling point, and kept in that 

 state for ten minutes. Of this lot, was a single seed of a 

 Gleditschia, several of Robinia, which, however, did not ap- 

 pear above ground. The third kind of seed has escaped our 

 memory, but it did not vegetate : the fourth seed was the 

 <S^ida polydndra, brought several years ago from the Botani- 

 cal Garden at Calcutta, by a friend of ours, and which we 

 had in our possession ever since, and, failing to vegetate it by 



