166 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 



thing possessing vitality ; the fact, however, is cer- 

 tain. As such instances of success are confined to 

 seeds with hard shells, it is possible that the heated 

 fluid may act in part mechanically by cracking the 

 shell, in part as a solvent of the matters enclosed in 

 the seed, and in part as a stimulant. 



Mr. Lymburn, nurseryman at Kilmarnock, has 

 lately called attention to the effect produced upon 

 germinating seeds by alkaline substances. He states 

 that experiments made by Mr. Charles Maltuen, and 

 narrated in Brewster's Journal of Science, having 

 shown that the negative or alkaline pole of a galvanic 

 battery caused seeds to germinate in much less time 

 than the positive or acid pole, he was induced to 

 observe the effects on seeds of acetic, nitric, and sul- 

 phuric acids, and also of water rendered alkaline by 

 potash and ammonia. "In the alkaline, the seeds 

 vegetated in thirty hours, and were well developed in 

 forty ; while in the acetic and sulphuric they took 

 seven days ; and, even after a month, they had not 

 begun to grow in the acetic." This experiment led 

 to others upon lime ; "a very easily procured alkali, 

 and which he inferred to be more efficient than any 

 other from the well-known affinity of quick or newly 

 slacked lime for carbonic acid. Lime, as taken from 

 the quarry, consists of carbonate of lime, or lime 

 united to carbonic acid ; but, in the act of burning, 

 the carbonic acid is driven off; and hence the great 

 affinity of newly slacked lime for carbonic acid. He 

 depended, therefore, upon this affinity, to extract the 

 carbon from the starch, assisted by moisture" {Gard. 



