616 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



the plant will, throughout the whole of its growth, be superior 

 to another plant which has germinated under less favorable 

 circumstances, even though the latter be favored with a soil 

 equally rich, and an atmosphere equally genial. It is impos- 

 sible to lay down any rules for planting corn, which will 

 insure its germination most advantageously. Keeping the 

 principles just adverted to in view, we must determine the 

 proper mode of conforming to them by repeated and careful 

 experiments in each locality. In loose sandy soils, where the 

 atmosphere can readily permeate to a considerable depth, it is 

 best to plant deep in order to increase the moisture ; but in 

 stiff soils, the planting should be as shallow as is consistent 

 with the perfect exclusion of light. 



Let me once more repeat, that if the average crop of corn 

 in this State is ever to be raised to what is now the maximum 

 production, much more attention must be paid to the germina- 

 tion of the seed than has ever been given before. 



I have already stated that the germ of the corn first develops 

 itself in the plumule and the radicle. These consist merely of 

 vessels composed of the cellular fibre of Payen, which is a 

 substance, intermediate between starch and woody fibre ; no 

 true wood is developed until the first true leaves make their 

 appearance. 



The first chemical transformation effected in the seed as 

 nourishment for the expanding germ, is the conversion of the 

 starchy portion into vinegar, and the nitrogenous portion into 

 diastase. I do not know what function is performed by vine- 

 gar, nor how it nourishes the plant, but the function of diastase 

 has been pretty well ascertained by chemists. It possesses the 

 property first of making starch soluble in water. You know 

 the vessels of the germ are so miimte, that a body of the mag- 

 nitude of a grain of starch, merely mechanically suspended in 

 water, would choke them up, and all circulation, and. conse- 

 quently all life, would be destroyed. Since the starch of the 

 kernel is the food provided by nature for the sustenance .of the 

 young plant, until it is provided with organs by which it can 

 procure its food from the earth and the atmosphere, we are 

 able to understand the value of the provision by which dias- 

 tase is formed at the very base of the germ. It dissolves the 

 starch of the seed, and thus enables it to circulate through the 



