76 AMERICANGARDENER. 



many others, require a few minutes. Parsnip 

 and Carrot, and all the winged seeds, require to 

 be worked by your fingers in a little water, and 

 well wetted^ before you put them into the glass ; 

 and the carrot should be rubbed, so as to get off 

 part of the hairs, which would otherwise act as 

 the feathers do as to a duck. The seed of Beet 

 and Mangel Wurzel are in a case or shell. The 

 rough things that we sow are not the seeds, but 

 the cases in which the seeds are contained, each 

 case containing from one to five seeds. Therefore 

 the trial by water is not, as to these two seeds, 

 conclusive, though, if the seed be very good ; if 

 there be four or five in a case, shell and all will 

 sink in water, after being in the glass an hour. 

 And, as it is a matter of such great importance, 

 that every seed should grow in a case where the 

 plants stand so far apart ; as gafis in rows of Beet 

 and Mangel Wurzel are so very injurious, the 

 best way is to reject all seed that will not sink 

 case and all, after being put into warm water and 

 remaining there an hour. 



134. But, seeds of all sorts, are, sometimes, 

 if not always, part sound and part unsound ; and, 

 as the former is not to be rejected on account of 

 the latter, the proportion of each should be ascer- 

 tained, if a separation be not made. Count then 

 a hundred seeds, taken promiscuously, and put 

 them into water as before directed. If fifty sink 

 and fifty swim, half your seed is bad and half 

 good ; and so, in proportion, as to other numbers 

 of sinkers and swimmers. There may be plants, 

 the sound seeds of which will not sink ; but I know 

 of none. If it be found in any instance, they 

 would, I think, be found in those of the Tulip-tree, 



