THE GENESEE EAEMEE. 



153 



GERMINATION OF SEED. 



It is not uncoinmoa to hear complaints made of 

 tlie failure of seeds to grow ; and much, blame is 

 then thrown upon the seedsman from whom the 

 seeds were purchased. This is often unjustly done, 

 although it must be acknowledged that in many 

 cases the fault lies with them in not using sufficient 

 discrimination in selecting the seeds. "We find in 

 the Gardener'^s Chronicle a translation of an article 

 published in the Journal de la Socie.te Im^eriale 

 d'' Horticulture^ wi-itten by M. Charles Appelius, 

 an extensive seedsman at Erfurt, which shows how 

 far the tests that ai-e usually applied to ascertain 

 the -vitality of seeds can be depended upon. He 

 tells us the first requisite to success in growing 

 plants is to use seeds capable of germinating. We 

 quote : 



"Now the goodness of a sample can only be 

 proved by the number of seeds which, out of a 

 given quantity, grow and become plants. Yet too 

 often its vitality is determined by the specific weight 

 or density of the seeds. This method is no doubt 

 good, but not infallible ; besides, the weight of the 

 same kind of seed may vary from year to year, ac- 

 cording to fhe manner in which it is grown; it 

 may even vary upon the same plant ; it does so 

 particularly in an ear of Indian corn, the grains 

 situated in the center of that plant having a greater 

 specitic gravity than those above or below." 



Experiments tried by Dr. Hellriegel have proved 

 ihat the best formed seeds have the greatest specific 

 gravity, and that the heaviest seeds of any partic- 

 ular plant produce the strongest plants. 



" Every one knows that in order to ascertain the 

 specific gravity of seeds quickly and easily, it is the 

 custom to throw them into water, and to collect as 

 the best those which, from their greater weight, 

 fall to the bottom, while those that float are reject- 

 ed as bad. However, too much confidence must 

 not be placed in this method of proving seed by 

 water. It may frequently mislead, particularly in 

 the case of seeds, in which the specitic gravity dif- 

 fers but little from that of the fluid. For example, 

 those of Cucurbitaceous plants, which are produced 

 during cold seasons, float upon water, and never- 

 theless germinate very well. It is known too, says 

 M. Appelius, that the seeds of these plants which 

 have been kept a few years produce plants bearing 

 more female flowers than younger plants; that is 

 to say, the plants are more prolific than those 

 raised from seeds gathered in a cold season and 

 planted shortly after they have ripened. Good 

 seeds of the melon and gourd lose weight as they 

 grow old ; at first they will sink in water, and by 

 the sixth year lialf of them will float, without hav- 

 ing become bad." 



From this it will be seen that the trial by water 

 is not to be depended on. It answers very well 

 with those seeds that contain a large proportion of 

 Btarch, such as those of Cereals and Leguminous 



plants, but not with those that contain oil or air, 

 and -jvhose seeds are nearly equal to water in spe- 

 cific gravity, such as carrots, parsnips, lettuce, etc. 

 M. Appelius also gives a table containing the 

 length of time necessary for the seeds of many 

 plants to germinate at a temperature of 54" to 64* 

 in the open air, from which we select the following 

 as being most important, the figure after each name 

 indicating the number of days the seed takes to 

 grow. Garden cress, 2; cabbage, lettuce, buck- 

 wheat, 4; pea, melon, rye-grass, 5; rye, barley, 

 oats, maize, 7 ; wheat, kidney beans, 8 ; sugar beet, 

 tocacco, 10 ; clover, onion, 15 ; parsnip, parsley, 

 21 ; potato, 27. This table indicates that the light- 

 est seed require the longest time to germinate. 



"A tolerably large number of seeds come up 

 slowly and even with difficulty; they are generally 

 those which have a thick, tough skin. In this case 

 it is a good plan to soak the sample in hot water 

 from 167° to 185° for four-and-twenty hours, and 

 not to sow it until after it has been prepared in 

 this manner. 



"The spores of ferns and the seeds of orchids, 

 which are very minute, come up readily, if they 

 are scattered on pieces of peat placed in a pan with 

 water." 



In his opinion, the reason of the frequent failure 

 of seeds in gardens is that they are sown in earth 

 that is too dry, and buried too deep ; and he recom- 

 mends that seeds of perfectly hardy annuals be 

 sown late in autumn or very early in spring. 



RENOVATING OLD APPLE TREES. 



Eds. Genesee Farmer: — On returning from the 

 west two years since, after an absence of nearly 

 twenty years, I found that many old familiar trees 

 in the orchards here had been removed from their 

 places, like those who planted them, fifty years 

 ago ; while many more showed signs of rapid de- 

 cay. A year ago last spring, I thought I would try 

 the virtue of trimming upon a tree which was 

 considered hopeless — about half of tlie limbs being 

 dead, and the others showing but little signs of life. 



In the first place I removed all the dead wood, 

 and then instead of cutting out a part of the large 

 branches that remained, I carefully thinned out the 

 small ones, taking perhaps a quarter of the live 

 branches. The tree thus trimmed put out its foli- 

 age after a fashion, stood it through the winter, 

 and the last season had quite a lively appearance, 

 and bore considerable fruit. 



Last spring I tried another which had been a 

 valuable tree, but now one side, including tlie heart, 

 had rotted and gone, and many of the branches 

 were dry ; and as very few fruit buds were set up- 

 on it, I thought nothing could be lost by removing 

 a considerable portion of tlie wood. I tlierefore 

 went through with the same process as before, 

 spending most of the time for half a day in its 

 top, to thin out as far as I could reach, and not to 

 cut any large branches. In blooming time there 

 appeared but few blossoms, though pretty evenly 



