52 OPERATIONS OF GARDENING. PART I. 



gather the seeds of these, as they may be so easily procured 

 fresh and good from England, and particularly as several soon 

 degenerate if sown repeatedly from seed the produce of this 

 country. There are, notwithstanding, some which do not de- 

 generate from being raised each season successively from 

 garden-seed, but which, in Bengal especially, cannot be culti- 

 vated successfully otherwise. I may instance the Sweet-pea, 

 which in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, when raised from 

 English seed, though it thrives vigorously, seldom or never 

 puts forth a single blossom ; and several annuals besides, the 

 imported seed of which does not germinate, perhaps, more than 

 once in two or three seasons that it is sown. During a resi- 

 dence of several years near Calcutta, the English Larkspur 

 seed that I sowed each year I never found in a single instance 

 germinate. 



A good way of securing the seeds of most of the annuals 

 is to pull the plants up by the roots just before the seeds 

 are quite ripe, and lay them upon the sheet of a newspaper in 

 a dry room, where the seeds will ripen even better than they 

 would have done in the garden ; and none that drop off will 

 be lost. 



3. Culinary Vegetables. Where the seed of culinary vege- 

 tables is easily obtainable from Europe or America it will 

 not, I believe, be found advantageous to save any from the 

 garden, except it be of Peas, Beans, Onions, Mustard and Cress, 

 and in Lower Bengal Artichokes and Cauliflowers, which in 

 that locality, when raised from imported seed, are rarely pro- 

 ductive ; as the produce of what is termed acclimated seed is 

 unquestionably very inferior to that of imported. Onion-seed 

 seems to retain its vitality a much shorter time than any other 

 vegetable seed ; hence imported seed sometimes germinates 

 very scantily, and frequently not at all. In the Upper Pro- 

 vinces, likewise, whither the conveyance of heavy seeds, like 

 those of Peas and Beans, involves a considerable expense, an 

 abundant supply of the seed of these vegetables may be saved 

 from the garden each year in succession, without the produce 

 raised from it being found much, if at all, degenerate. Care, 

 however, must be taken that the finest seed be saved, and not 

 that merely which is left, after the best has been gathered for 

 table use. When a person is dependent entirely upon his own 



