HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. » 



One of them, M. Sarrail, at l'Ecluse de la Chaux ( department of the 

 Aude,) had in 1817 made a garden which bordered on one side the river 

 Fresquel. The ground was sloping ; he levelled it, arranging it in horizon- 

 tal beds;and staged like a terrace. The lowest bed, which ran parallel to 

 the river and nearly at its level, was frequently submerged by its freshets. 

 Not knowing how to occupy the space he sowed, for want of better, some 

 Persicaria ( Polygonum Persicaria), and thought no more about it. 



The following year, in 1818, he thought he could make better use of this 

 portion of his garden by planting in it Provence reeds ( Arundo donax) 

 which he obtained from Perpignan. This strong growing grass made rapid 

 development, and in less than three years formed a continual barrier, in the 

 thickness of which the river during its overflows deposited a large quantity 

 of mud, which gradually raised the level of the bed. The reeds, each year 

 deeper buried by these deposits, followed the ascent of the soil, by prolong- 

 ing little by little their rhizomes by the upper part. In the month of Feb- 

 ruary last, M. Sarrail had this plantation destroyed ; the rhizomes of the 

 Arundo, which then formed three superposed beds, the lowest being nearly 

 reduced to mould, were dug out of the soil, and the underlying earth transfer- 

 ed for compost to the bed immediately above. What was his astonishment, 

 when, two or three months afterwards, he saw this bed as well as the ex- 

 cavation whence the earth had been taken, cover itself with an abundant 

 crop of Persicarias ! He then recollected the seeds which he had sown 

 35 years before, and as at the same time he read from our journal, the 

 analogous observation of M. Trochu, he could not doubt but that these plants 

 came from the seeds sown by him at that time and which were preserved 

 unhurt under the thick bed of mud which the reeds had stopped on the way, 

 and which had solidified in the net work of their root stocks. 



Here, as well as in the instance reported by M. Trochu, it is to their 

 burial in the soil, at such a depth that the atmospheric influence could not 

 reach them, that the seeds owed the preservation of their germinative power 

 during so long a period of years. The result would have been very differ- 

 ent if, in place of being covered, they had been kept in an apartment as 

 seeds which we destine for sowing generally are, because then the alterna- 

 tions of cold and heat of dryness and humidity, and especially the pro- 

 longed contact with the air, would have developed in them a fermentation 

 incompatible with their vitality. This is a fact of daily experience and one 

 which gardeners have but too much occasion to observe ; every cne knows 

 that seeds have les3 chance to grow the older they are ;, there is, however, 

 a marked difference in this respect in different species. 

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