2U SEEDS MUST BE KEPT DRY. 



which maintain vitality, and superabundance of water, is the 

 seed liable to perish. 



The complete maturation of the seed is, however, a disad- 

 vantage, when it has to be sown immediately after being 

 gathered ; for the embryo is formed, and capable of germinating, 

 long before the period of greatest maturity. There are two 

 periods in the latter part of the organization of a seed which, 

 although separated by no limits, require to be distinguished. The 

 first is that when the embryo is completed; and the second is 

 when nature has, in addition, furnished it with the means of 

 maintaining its vitality for a long period. It is just as capable 

 of growing at the expiration of the first period as of the second; 

 it will do so immediately if committed to the ground; and we 

 see it actually happening to Peas, Beans, Com, and other field 

 crops, in wet summers; but at the end of the second period, it 

 cannot germinate tUl it has relieved itself of matters not 

 required for vegetation, which, during that period, were deposited 

 in its tissue. 



If seeds are to be preserved for a length of time, a state of 

 complete dryness is so necessary to them that it has been re- 

 commended to increase it by artificial means ; not, however, 

 by the application of heat, or by any process like that of kiln- 

 drying, which would destroy their vitality ; but by some of 

 those chemical processes that dry the atmosphere without rais- 

 ing its temperature. It occurred to Mr. Livingstone, that air 

 made dry by means of sulphuric acid might be advantageously 

 employed for this purpose, and he says that the success of his 

 experiments was complete. He placed the seeds to be dried 

 in the pans of Leslie's ice machine, and carefuUy replaced the 

 receiver without exhausting the air; small seeds were sufii- 

 ciently dried in one or two days, and the largest seeds in less 

 than a week. {Hort. Trans., iii. 184.) Other contrivances might 

 easily be adopted. Muriate of lime, for instance, which has 

 the property of absorbing the moisture of the atmosphere, 

 might, perhaps, be employed with advantage in drying the air 

 in which seeds are placed after being gathered. But such 

 devices have little practical value, the sun being the great power 

 to which the gardener very properly trusts. 



