24 OUR, FARM CROPS. 



plained. A third exists, however, and has its advocates, 

 though it is not very easy to understand its special 

 virtues. This is the solution of chloride of sodium (com- 

 mon salt), which is recommended to be prepared for 

 use strong enough to float an egg on its surface. The 

 modus operandi of these steep solutions comes more 

 appropriately before us in the description of the diseases 

 for which they are applied as remedies (see page 66). 

 The practice of steeping seed preparatory to sowing 

 was followed by the Romans; indeed, we find it men- 

 tioned by the earlier Greek agricultural writers. Their 

 ideas of its efficiency were based upon the superstitious 

 belief in some tutelary deity, and the success that fol- 

 lowed it was assigned to the favour of that presiding 

 guardian over their crops. The blood of a capon was 

 considered to preserve the seed macerated in it from the 

 attacks of all noxious diseases ; and the immersion of the 

 seed in a solution of nitre was supposed to endue it with 

 greater vitality. Here we have the germ of our present 

 practice of steeping, and also of the attempts that have 

 been made from time to time to introduce a steep solu- 

 tion that should exert a manurial effect upon the seed, 

 equal to that effected upon the growing plant by the usual 

 system of applying manures. Happily, these attempts have 

 never met with any success, though they were supported 

 by a certain amount of plausibility, and by the still stronger 

 inducement of a very great (asserted) saving in expendi- 

 ture. The value of the applications, whatever they were, 

 might readily be calculated according to the money worth 

 of the ingredients composing them, which could derive no 

 higher value from their being attached to the grain itself, 

 than if they had been merely placed in the soil for its 

 natural use. The quantity that could possibly be attached 

 to the bushel of seed would be too minute to have any 

 practical manurial effect on the soil whatsoever. The 



