Vitality of Seeds 115 



others of our sweetest songsters : and when October the 

 Wyn Monath, or Winter Tylleth^ of our Saxon ancestors 

 comes round again, what foliage is there that can lighten up 

 the brake like a long trail of bramble, with its russet-tinted 

 and golden leaves ? 



This is, perhaps, scarcely the place for a lengthy disserta- 

 tion on the pros and cons of the vexed question of how 

 long buried seeds, or mummy wheat, can retain their 

 vitality, and an author must not be held responsible for the 

 authenticity of every tale he repeats ; but if proof were 

 wanting, as assuredly it can hardly be, that the tastes of 

 early man differed but little, if at all, from our own, it 

 would seem to be forthcoming in an extract from the 

 Gardener s Chronicle , of 25th September 1852, now before 

 me. It is therein stated that " a mass of seeds having been 

 taken from the stomach of the body of an early Briton 

 disinterred from a tumulus in Dorsetshire, and having been 

 sown, they germinated, and produced a Rasp " ! It may 

 just be added that it has been my fortune to witness the 

 opening up of a goodly number of British Barrows, in 

 several widely separated districts, but in no case have the 

 enclosed cists revealed more than fragments of wasted bones, 

 with sometimes the remains of " urns," weapons, or trinkets, 

 which the friends of the deceased had intended for his, or 

 her, use in the next world. At the most, all that remained 

 of the more perishable part of the human body was a mere 

 handful of discoloured dust, or a dark stain only upon the 

 white sand at the bottom of the tomb, to mark where it 

 had been laid ; all else having, long ages ago, entirely 

 disappeared. But what of that ? He must, after all, be 

 accounted something of a dullard who would be for ever 

 seeking to disprove, by the negative evidence of his own 

 limited experience, the positive assertions of others, and it 

 is enough that the narrative has conjured up a picture of the 

 ancient Welshman regaling himself on the produce of this 

 same bare bryn, 1 and regarding with jealous eyes the 

 Roman, or Saxon, intruder on his black-berrying grounds, 

 just as his descendants yonder children, with their tin 



1 A small hill. 



