580 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



it into carbonic acid, for which pnrpose a large 

 supply of oxygen is required. Under ordinary 

 circumstances, the oxygen is furnished by ihe 

 decomposition of water by the vital forces of the 

 seed ; but when those forces are languid, it has 

 been proposed to supply oxygen by some other 

 means. Humboldt employed a dilute solution ol 

 chlorine, which has a powerful tendency to de- 

 compose water and tet oxygen at liberty, and, it 

 is said, with great success. Oxalic acid has also 

 been used for the same purpose. 



Mr. Otto, of Berlin, states that he employs 

 oxalic acid to make old seeds germinate. The 

 eeeds are put into a bottle filled with oxalic arid, 

 and remain there till the germination is observa- 

 ble, which generally takes place in from twenty- 

 four to forty-eight hours ; when the seeds are 

 taken out, and sown in Ihe usual manner. Ano- 

 ther way is to wet a woollen cloth with oxalic 

 acid, on which the seeds are put, and it is then 

 folded up and kept in a etove ; by this method 

 email and hard seeds will germinate equally as 

 well as in the bottle. Also very small seeds are 

 sown in pots and placed in a hot-bed ; and oxalic 

 acid, much diluted, is applied twice or thriive a 

 day till they begin to grow. Particular care must 

 be taken to remove the seeds out of the acid as 

 eoon as the least vegetation is observable. Mr. 

 Otto found that by this means seeds which were 

 from twenty to forty years old grew, while the 

 came sort, sown in the usual manner, did not 

 grow at all {Gard. Mag., viii. 196): and it is 

 asserted by Dr. Hamilton (76., x. 368, 453,) and 

 others, that they have found decided advantages 

 from the employment of this substance. The- 

 oretically it would seem that the effects described 

 ought to be produced, but general experience 

 does not confirm them : and it may be conceived 

 that the rapid abstraction of carbon, bv the pre- 

 sence of an unnaturally large quantity of oxygen, 

 may produce effects as injurious to the health of 

 the seed as its too slow destruction in consequence 

 of the languor of the vital principle. 



The length of time that some seeds will lie in 

 the ground, under circumstances lavorable to 

 germination, without growing, is very remarka- 

 ble, and inexplicable upon any known principle. 

 If the hawthorn be sown immediately after the 

 seeds are ripe, a part will appear as plants the 

 next spring; a larger number the second year; 

 and stragglers, sometimes in considerable num- 

 bers, even in the third and fourth seasons. Seeds 

 of the genera ribes, berberis, and pajonia, have 

 a similar habit. Mr. Savi is related by De 

 Candolle to have had, for more than ten years, a 

 crop of tobacco from one original sowing ; the 

 young plants having been destroyed yearly, with- 

 out being allowed to form their seed. This mat- 

 ter does not, perhaps, concern the theory of horti- 

 culture, for theory is incapable of explaining it ; 

 but it is a fact that it is useful to know, because it 

 may prevent still living eeeds from being thrown 

 away, under the idea that, as they did not grow 

 the first year they will never grow at all. 



The maturation of the seed, being a vital action 

 indispensable to the perpetuation of a species, is, 

 in wild plants, guarded from interruption by so 

 many wise precautions, that no artificial assistance 

 ia required in the process ; but in gardens, where 

 plants are often enfeebled by domestication, or ex- 

 posed to conditions very different from those to 



which they are subject in their natural stale, the 

 seed often refuses to ripen, or even to commence 

 the formation of an embryo. In such cases, the 

 skill of gardeners must aid the working of nature, 

 and art must effect that which the failing powers 

 of a plant are unable to bring about of them- 

 selves. 



Sterility is a common ma'ady of cultivated 

 plants; the finer varieties of fruit, and all dogble 

 and highly cultivated flowers, being more fre- 

 quently barren than fertile. This arises from 

 several different causes. 



The most common cause of sterility is an 

 unnatural developement of some organ in the 

 vicinity of the seed, which attracts to itself the 

 organizable matter that would otherwise be appli- 

 cable to the support of the seed. Of this the 

 pear, the pine-apple, and the plantain are illus- 

 trative instances. The more delicate varieties of 

 pear, such as the Gansel's bergamot and the 

 chaumontelle, have rarely any seeds ; of pine- 

 apple, none, except the Enville now and then, 

 have seeds, and that variety, though a large one, 

 is of liitle value for its delicacy, and probably 

 approaches nearly to the wild state of the plant ; 

 of- plantains, few, except the wild and crabbed 

 sorts, are seedful. The remedy (or this appears 

 to be, the withholding from such plants all the 

 sources from which their succulence can be en- 

 couraged. If, in consequence of any predisposi- 

 tion to form succulent tissue (on which the ex- 

 cellence of fruit much depends,) the organizable 

 matter of the plant be once diverted from feeding 

 the seed to those parts in which the succulence 

 exists, it will continue, by the action of endos- 

 mose, to be attracted thither more powerfully 

 than to any other part, and the effect of this will 

 be the starvation of the seed : but a scanty sup- 

 ply of food, an unhealthy condition of the plant 

 itself, or withholding the usual quantity of wa- 

 ter, will all check the tendency to luxuriance, and 

 therefore will favor the developement of the seed, 

 whose feeble attracting force is, in that case, not 

 so likely to be overcome by the accumulation of 

 attracting power in the neighboring parts. Thus 

 we see that pine-apples are more frequently 

 seedful under the bad cultivation of the continent, 

 than in the highly kept and skilfully managed 

 pineries of England. Abstraction of branches, 

 in the neighborhood of fruit, has also been occa- 

 sionally Ibund favorable to the formation of seed; 

 evidently because the food that would have been 

 conveyed into the branches, having no outlet, is 

 forced into the fruit. 



Another cause of sterility is the deficiency of 

 pollen in the anthers of a given plant, as in 

 vegetable mules which usually partake of the 

 spermatic debility so well known in similar cases 

 in the animal kingdom. It has often been found 

 that sterility of this kind is cured by the applica- 

 tion, to the seedless plant, of the vigorous pollen 

 of another less debilitated variety. 



In some plants, such as pelargoniums, when 

 cultivated, the anthers shed their pollen before 

 Ihe stigma is ready to receive its influence, and 

 thus sterility results. All such cases are provided 

 for, by employing the pollen of another flower. 

 (See Sweet, in the Gardener's Magazine, vii. 

 206.) 



An unfavorable state of the atmosphere ob- 

 structs the action of pollen, and thus produces 



