Germination of Seeds. 71 



ticular plants, for which a mandate was frequently given, without 

 consulting the chief as to whether they could be spared or not, 

 to the great prejudice of the establishment. I should propose 

 that no one should have the right of giving away anything what- 

 ever, unless to make exchanges ; but that all the residue, espe- 

 cially the spare stock of new or useful productions, should be 

 disposed of by public auction, at stated intervals ; with the view 

 to their circulation by the trade, at the same time that it would 

 tend to reduce the expense of the establishment. A complete 

 school of agriculture, which is also wanting, although the back- 

 ward state of that right arm of national prosperity, in almost 

 every part of the kingdom, makes it peculiarly desirable, ought 

 to be annexed, in order to make the foundation complete. 



I now earnestly call on the government, and on the patriotic 

 and independent members now taking their seats in the first 

 parliament of Victoria, not to lose this favouriible moment to 

 raise a monument worthy of the sovereign and themselves ; thus 

 acquiring, by the fairest means, legitimate and well-founded po- 

 pularity. Sooner or later, it must be done; and I can foresee 

 no opportunity more favourable than the present. If properly 

 done, we shall be as far above, as we are now below, other nations, 

 in this grand department of human knowledge.. 



London, Dec. 1837. 



Art. III. On the Germination of Seeds, 



(Read by Mr. Lymbium, President of the Kilmarnock Horticultural Society, 

 at its Annual Meeting for 1837.) 



The subject of the present essay concerns a new method of 

 furthering the germination of seeds, in which I have lately made 

 some experiments, which, I think, may be beneficial if better 

 known ; and for the proper understanding of which it will be 

 necessary to preface the subject by a short explanation of the 

 theory of the reproduction of plants. In floweriess plants (the 

 class Cryptogamia of botanists), reproduction takes place by 

 means of homogeneous masses of cellular substance, called spo- 

 rules or spores ; in ferns, on the back of the leaf; in mosses, in 

 small capsules or urns; and in lichens and fungi, from tubes 

 buried in the substance of the plants. Unlike the germ of 

 flowering plants, they contain no cotyledons, radicle, or plumule; 

 and, instead of growing uniformly from two constant points of their 

 surface, they are mere masses of cellular substance, and send 

 forth their roots from whatever place happens to have been 

 covered, and the stem from that portion exposed to light. In 

 the more simple forms of fungi and lichens, the subject is in- 

 volved in such mystery, that many have thence contended for 



F 4; 



