300 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



from Cul^a, and planted within thirty days from the time it was 

 taken from the? tree, remained without germinating eighteen 

 months in the moist propagating pit at the Durfee PLant House. 

 It was in a pot of damp loam, and kept most of the time at a 

 temperature about 60^ Fahrenheit, and finally produced five 

 vigorous plants. Many species of seeds from Australia, espe- 

 cially those of the leguminosa), will remain torpid for years in the 

 ground, unless thoroughly scalded in hot water for a few min- 

 utes before planting. This inactivity is douljtless, in part, due 

 to the fact that the seeds are so long out of ground after ripen- 

 ing as to become very dry and impervious to moisture, and in 

 part to their peculiar farinaceous composition. Tlie duration 

 of vitality in seeds which are protected from moisture, after 

 being thoroughly dried, is quite variable, though there would 

 seem to be no reason why a seed which can retain its power to 

 germinate for five years should not equally well do so for five 

 hundred. Melon seeds have been known to grow when fortj- 

 one years old, beans when one hundred, and the seeds of the 

 raspberry are believed by the best scientific authorities to have 

 germinated seventeen hundred years after they were buried in the 

 stomach of a man whose skeleton was exhumed from the depth 

 of thirty feet below the surface of the earth near Dorchester, 

 England. It is also generally believed that wheat at least 

 three thousand years old, taken from a tomb in Fgypt, has ger- 

 minated and produced a useful variety of this valuable cereal, 

 which is called mummy wheat. In some cases living seeds 

 have been thrown up from deep excavations, where they appear 

 to have lain undisturbed for many centuries. In these instances 

 they have been below frost, and often somewhat protected from 

 water by layers of clay and other peculiarities of the strata 

 above or around them. 



There arc numerous circumstances which induce the popular 

 belief that the soil is filled with seeds and spores in a dormant 

 condition, although it must be admitted that there are no 

 records of their actual discovery by observation. Whenever the 

 right combination of influences occurs, countless numbers of 

 plants of certain species spontaneously appear. Thus upon 

 land recently cleared of timber and burnt over, fire weed and 

 willow herb are almost sure to spring up in great profusion. 

 A clearing in a forest of oak or chestnut, if left undisturbed, is 



