35 



dislike, and which at that time may be actually injurious 

 to them. 



"The seeds of plants that have gradually become 

 habituated to unfavorable agricultural conditions, will 

 grow and give fair results under circumstances that might 

 prove quite fatal to the prospects of a crop from seed 

 which had not been so trained. But we may have obtained 

 seed which meets the conditions-we have laid down, and 

 yet find that we have not secured all the conditions neces- 

 sary to ensure, even to a moderate degree of certainty, a 

 good result for all our care. We allude here to the 

 danger of obtaining seed tainted by disease. It is a 

 well-ascertained fact that many of the diseases from which 

 our crops suffer are to be traced to the seed, either from 

 the germs of disease having been actually present in the 

 seed, or from the seed having been the produce of plants 

 which had been attacked by disease, and whose vigour 

 and constitution had thereby been injured. It is to meet 

 evils of this kind that the European farmer employes 

 washes and steeps, in which he prepares his seed for 

 sowing. We think it would be a wise act on the part of 

 the Indian farmer were he to adopt the same practice. 

 These washes are solutions of sulphate of copper, of 

 chloride of lime, of chloride of sodium (common salt), of 

 sulphate of iron, of sulphate of soda, of arsenic, &c. The 

 arsenic solution is objectionable as a steep for grain, 

 from the danger of putting large quantities of so poisonous 

 a substance in the hands of ordinary agricultural labourers, 

 and from the danger of the prepared grain finding its way 

 amongst the food of the live-stock. Sulphate of soda 

 (Glauber salt) possesses some merit, but as the grain 

 which has been dressed by it must be dried by lime-powder, 

 a great deal of trouble is produced. Sulphate of iron 



