PROPAGATION AND CflAI*. ! 



matter of, such great importance, that every seed should 

 grow in a case where the plants stand so far apart j as 

 gaps in rows of beet and mangel wurzel are so very in- 

 jurious, the best way is to reject all seed that will not 

 sink, case and all, after being put into warm water, and 

 remaining there an hour. 



70. But, seeds of all sorts are, sometimes, if not 

 always, part sound and part unsound ; and, as the former 

 is not to be rejected on account of the latter, the pro- 

 portion of each should be ascertained, if a separation be 

 not made. Count, then, a hundred seeds, taken pro- 

 miscuously, and put them into water as before directed. 

 If fifty sink and fifty swim, half your seed is bad, and 

 half good ; and so, in proportion, as to other numbers of 

 sinkers and swimmers. There may be plants, the sound 

 seeds of which will not sink ; but I know of none. If it 

 be found in any instance, they would, I think, be found 

 in those of the tulip-tree, the ash, the birch, and the 

 parsnip, all of which are furnished with so large a portion 

 of wing. Yet all these, if sound, will sink, if put into 

 warm water, with the wet worked a little into the wings 

 first. 



71 There is, however, another way of ascertaining this 

 important fact, the soundness, or unsoundness of seed ; 

 and that is, by sowing them. If you have a hot-bed (or, 

 if not, how easy to make one for a hand-glass ?), put a 

 hundred seeds, taken as before directed, sow them in a 

 flower-pot, and plunge the pot in the earth, under the 

 glass, in the hot-bed, or hand-glass. The climate, under 

 the glass, is warm ; and a very few days will tell you what 



