COMMUNICATION ON SEEDS. 57 



crops. As with the potato, however, we are inclined to think other 

 seeds should not be quite ripe, but should be taken in their fullest 

 vigor a little time previous. 



New mode of preparing seeds. We give the following notice of the 

 discovery of a new mode of preparing seeds, so as to render manures 

 almost if not quite unnecessary. The facts are remarkable ; and, if 

 found to be practicable under all circumstances, they will soon effect 

 a wonderful revolution in the arts of agriculture. The withholding 

 of the process by which this may be effected, if what is stated be 

 true, is criminal. However, we give the notice from Prof. Lindley, 

 conductor of the Gardener's Chronicle, London. 



(Communication on the Art of Cultivating the ground without 

 Manure.) By F. H. Bickes, Frankfort on the Maine, 1842, p. 31. 



WONDERS WILL NKVKR CEASE ! While our agriculturists are eagerly 

 discussing the comparative advantages of particular soils, and studying 

 the theory of manures as propounded by Sprengel and Liebig, a country- 

 man of these distinguished professors comes forward to proclaim that 

 their labors are vain ; for, if we are to believe him, he has discovered the 

 art of growing luxuriant crops on the poorest lands, and without any 

 manure whatsoever ; and the cost of the process is so trifling, that for 

 the acre of wheat or maize, it does not exceed five pence sterling ; 

 and for rape, cabbage, etc., amounts to only about half that sum. At 

 first we were disposed to consider such extraordinary pretensions as an 

 effusion of quackery ; and entitled to little or no credit ; but our in- 

 credulity has been somewhat shaken by the numerous and respectable 

 attestations which the author has appended to his pamphlet, and 

 which tend to prove that his method has been practiced with success 

 during the last twelve years, in various parts of Germany and Holland. 

 Thus the certificates from Vienna, dated in 1829 and 1830, declare 

 that Mr. Bickes's process, which would seem to consist in some prepa- 

 ration of the seed renders all manuring unnecessary, is applicable to 

 the poorest soils, and to all sorts of plants, and imparts to them a 

 wonderful degree of vegetation and fulness ;" and they gave the 

 results of the experiments in the Imperial Garden, from which it ap- 

 pears that wheat raised from seed sown by Mr. B. had larger ears and 

 more grains than that produced from unprepared seed ; that the barley 

 showed ears with four rows and a large number of grains, while that 

 from unprepared seed had only two rows and a smaller proportion of 

 grains on each stalk ; and the Indian corn exhibited a larger number 

 of much stronger and thicker heads. 



Some plants of the sunflower, treated according to Mr. B.'s method, 

 grew to the height of ten to eleven feet, with woody stems of eight and 

 a half to nine inches in circumference. Ten or twelve potato plants, 

 of a large yellow sort, called Marburger, yielded each, on the average, 

 thirty good sized tubers, with stem and branches seven feet long ; and 



