IV. CULTIVATION IN GENERAL. 



know of no seed, which, if sound and really good, will 

 not sink in water. The unsoundness of seed arises from 

 several causes. Unripeness, blight, mouldiness, and age, are 

 the most frequent of these causes. The two first, if ex- 

 cessive, prevent the seed from ever having the germinat- 

 ing quality in them. Mouldiness arises from the seed 

 being kept in a damp place, or from its having heated. 

 When dried again it becomes light. Age will cause the 

 germinating quality to evaporate 5 though, where there 

 is a great proportion of oil in the seed, this quality will 

 remain in it for many years, as will be seen by-and-by. 



69. The way to try seed is this. Put a small quantity 

 of it in luke-warm warm, and let the water be four or 

 five inches deep. A mug, or basin, will do, but a large 

 tumbler glass is best -, for then you can see the bottom as 

 well as top. Some seeds, such as those of cabbage, 

 radish, and turnip, will, if good, go to the bottom at 

 once. Cucumber, melon, lettuce, endive, and many 

 others, require a few minutes. Parsnip and carrot, and 

 all the winged seeds, require to be worked by your fingers 

 in a little water, and well wetted, before you put them 

 into the glass j and the carrot should be rubbed, so as to 

 get off part of the hairs, which would otherwise act, as 

 the feathers do as to a duck. The seed of beet and 

 mangel wurzel are in a case or shell. The rough things 

 that we sow are not the seeds, but the cases in which the 

 seeds are contained, each case containing from one to Jive 

 seeds. Therefore the trial by water is not, as to these 

 two seeds, conclusive, though if the seed be very good ; 

 if there be four or five in a case, shell and all will sink in 

 water, after being in the glass an hour. And, as it is a 



