GERMINATION 141 



seed lives for whole years, even centuries, while an- 

 other loses its germinating power in a few months, 

 from no cause that we can discover. Thus the seeds 

 of the angelica will not come up unless they are 

 sown immediately after maturing; but beans have 

 been known to germinate after being kept more than 

 a hundred years, and rye after a hundred and forty. 

 Excluded from the air, certain seeds may be kept 

 for centuries, always ready to germinate whenever 

 favorable conditions shall present themselves. This 

 explains why strawberry, bluet, and camomile seeds 

 from ancient tombs have germinated just as new 

 seeds would have done. Finally, rush seeds have 

 been made to germinate that were dug up from great 

 depths in the Island of the Seine, the original site 

 of Paris. Doubtless those seeds dated from the time 

 when Paris, under the name of Lutetia, consisted of 

 a few mud and reed huts on the marshy borders of 

 the stream. But despite these remarkable excep- 

 tions let us never forget that recent seed is prefer- 

 able to old for sowing; it comes up better and in 

 greater abundance. 



"We have just seen that certain seeds are very 

 slow in coming up, as for example the peach, apricot, 

 and plum, whose thick shells resist the moisture re- 

 quired for germination. Put directly into the 

 ground in the very places that the young plants are 

 to occupy later, these seeds would be exposed to not 

 a few dangers during their leisurely germination. 

 Prolonged rains might make them rot; various ma- 

 rauders that are partial to them, such as rats, field- 



