242 The Great World's Farm 



hand, have been known to germinate after being kept, 

 merely wrapped in paper, for thirty years. It is believed 

 that if melon-seeds produce plants at all after being kept 

 for some time, their crop of fruit will be all the larger; 

 but they are commonly supposed not to live longer than 

 seven years, and even within this period the longer they 

 are kept the smaller is their chance of germinating con- 

 sidered to be. 



Cases, however, have been known in which certain 

 seeds, quite small seeds, too, have kept the life in them 

 not only for years, but for centuries, and even millenni- 

 ums. We are not alluding to the famous mummy- wheat ; 

 for the grain of wheat, being quite unprotected except by 

 a thin husk, loses all power of germinating in a few years 

 at most; and none of the interesting stories told of wheat 

 raised from grain found in Egyptian tombs have ever yet 

 been satisfactorily proved. 



Grain taken from mummies has germinated sure 

 enough, but it has been grain recently introduced by the 

 Arabs! In one instance the plant raised bore oats; but 

 this was unlucky, for oats were not known to ancient 

 Egypt; and in no single case has any success attended 

 the innumerable attempts made to raise plants from genu- 

 ine mummy-wheat. But seeds found in Roman tombs 

 have not only germinated, but produced plants. 



Of all well-authenticated cases, however, the most 

 remarkable is that of the seedlings raised by Dr. Lindley, 

 in Chiswick Gardens, from raspberry seeds found in Celtic 

 tumuli perhaps some two thousand years old. Raspberry 

 seeds have very hard coats, it is true, and these seeds 

 were safely buried from the air, and beyond the reach of 

 any great changes of temperature; but yet that things so 



