614 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



some time after planting, a chemical change is produced, the 

 corneous and starchy portions are decomposed and dissolved 

 by the rain water, and are diffused through the soil ; hence 

 when the soil attains to a temperature sufficiently elevated to 

 start the germ into activity, the plumulus and the radicle show 

 themselves, but finding no nourishment to support them, they 

 wither and die. This is a great evil, because the labor and 

 expense of replanting must be incurred, and this process must 

 be performed so late in the season, that the risk of frost before 

 ripening is very much increased. But this is not the greatest 

 evil ; it sometimes happens that the soil attains to 55° before 

 the corneous and starchy portions are ivholly decomposed. In 

 this case, there is just enough of these substances left to give 

 the plant vitality, and no more. It lives through a feeble and 

 morbid existence, but it never recovers its vigor; the crop is 

 deficient in quantity and quality, and proves unremunerative 

 to the cultivator. Much of the damage which is supposed to 

 arise from planting in the wrong time of the moon, is really 

 due to planting when the soil is at the wrong temperature, and 

 if the time ever arrives when the average crop of the country 

 is equal to what our premium crops now are, it must be when 

 every farmer owns a thermometer and knows how to use it. 



The second point essential to germination is moisture. 



It is a very general law of chemical affinity, that when two 

 substances combine chemically, one of them must be in a fluid 

 state. Since a very active play of chemical affinities takes 

 place as soon as germination commences, it follows that the 

 substances enveloped in the grain, which are the objects of 

 these affinities, must have access to a sufficient amount of 

 water for their solution and to act as a vehicle for their distri- 

 bution through the tender vessels of the germ. 



The third point to be observed in the germination of corn is 

 seclusion from light. You all know that^ight is a compound 

 body, that can be separated into seven distinct colors, by 

 means of a prism ; but it may not be known to some of you, 

 that there are other distinct ingredients or agencies in the 

 solar ray, separate and distinct from its light-giving properties : 

 one of these is the heat-giving ray ; the other the chemical 

 ray, by virtue of which the chemical changes due to light are 

 produced in the growing plant. It has been found, by repeated 



