12 



great loss during the spring of 1864. If the season is an av- 

 erage one, such seed as is two years old can be relied upon if 

 it has. weight sufficient to sink it ; but such a season as the 

 spring of 1 864, being unusually wet, much of the two-years 

 seed that was sown, though sown by farmers who had them- 

 selves raised it, failed to vegetate. 



The lesson to be learned by such unfortunate result is, that 

 it is never perfectly safe to sow seed that is two years old, and 

 that the only way a prudent cultivator will use it will be when 

 mixed with a large proportion of fresh seed. There are two 

 special risks incidental to the sinking test ; first, the danger 

 that the seed will not be thoroughly dried, as onion seed when 

 containing sufficient moisture to cause it to sprout if stored in 

 bulk, appears dry to the eye ; again, the vitality of onion seed 

 is very apt to be hurt by the drying of it, particularly so, as it 

 is usually deferred until just previous to planting, when mat- 

 ters are greatly hurried, (as the risk of injury through this pro- 

 cess is considered too great to permit it to be sunk earlier in 

 the season,) and then it is likely to be exposed too near the 

 kitchen stove. Seed thoroughly winnowed by the wind, on a 

 large sheet spread on some open spot, free from all eddies 

 will be found to give a quality very nearly or quite as free 

 from light seed as the sinking process. As the objection just 

 presented does not lie against this process, it is decidedly pref- 

 erable. The only reliable test for the vitality of any variety 

 of seed is that which includes all the usual conditions of growth • 

 Testing by planting in a hot-house or in a box in a common 

 house, is not fully reliable, because the seed are not surround- 

 ed by the conditions of natural growth, — they then have a 

 temperature very mild, and very nearly constant, with no ex- 

 cess of moisture or dryness, — whereas the natural condition 

 of vegetation includes the very varying temperature of early 



