﻿FIELD AND FOREST. 7 



40 miles from the coast, a year after the soil was exposed. Now, it 

 seems to us if these plum stories were in the soil when first exposed, 

 they should have grown at once, also it is well known that birds scatter 

 the seeds of various Pruni far and wide, and 40 miles from the near- 

 est trees would be but a couple of hours flight. Pigeons were shot near 

 Albany, N. Y., with green rice in their crops, they must have gathered 

 700 miles distant. (See G. P. Marsh, Man and Nature.) A little 

 careful observation might have given this case an importance it does 

 not now possess, for the seeds in question are so large they could 

 readily have been discovered if present in the dirt as thrown out of the 

 well. In conclusion. Prof. Winchell admits that "the crucial test is 

 yet to be made." His statements were reviewed by Dr. Geo. Vasey, 

 in the American Entomologist and Botanist, for July and August, 1870. 



Flora, 18J5, S. J. The early volumes of this work are rare in this 

 country. The matter of this reference appears identical with that of 

 the article in /sis, described below. 



/sis. At a scientific convention held in Stuttgard, December 18, 

 1834, Count Sternberg stated that some wheat, from Egyptian tombs, 

 sent home by Lieut Von Prokesh, was sown after being soaked in oil 

 and rolled in dust, that two seeds grew and ripened, ears similar to 

 wheat grown in Spain and Southern France called Talavera. Drs. 

 Zollikoffer and St. Gall observed that Dr. Gay, in Paris, had obtained 

 similar results and Herr Marteus added that corn from the graves of 

 the Inca's, of Peru, had sprouted. 



This reference is probably the original form of a statement often 

 quoted. It would now be difficult to ascertain how well the alleged 

 facts were established, but the utter failure of all direct experiments 

 with seeds from Egyptian tombs compel serious doubts of the accuracy 

 of this statement. 



G. P. Marsh, in Man and Nature, thinks that " the vitality of seeds 

 seems almost imperishable, while they remain in the situations in 

 which nature deposits them." In addition to pressing into his service 

 observations by Darwin and Wittwer, which they explain in a different 

 way, he draws from Dwight's Travels, instances of the spontaneous 

 substitution of hickory for a natural growth of white pine after long 

 intervening cultivation at Panton, Vt., and a change to white pine 

 after clearing up oak and chestnut at Northampton, Mass. Examples 

 of this class are certainly curious but far from decisive. They may be 



