species. Adamson has given this table of the periods in which the following Seeds germinate after being 
sown : — 
Wheat; Millet 1 day. 
Spinach; Beans; Mustard ... 3 days. 
Lettuce; Aniseed 4 — 
Melon; Cucumber; Cress ... 5 — 
Radish; Beetroot 6 — 
Barley 7 — 
Purslain 9 days. 
Cabbage 10 — 
Hyssop 30 — 
Parsley 40 or 50 — 
Almond; Chesnut; Peach . . 1 year. 
Rose; Hawthorn; Filbert . , 2 years. 
By steeping the seed in the chlorine gas, the process was hastened : cress seed then began its germi- 
nation in 32 hours. — Achard found that they would not grow in heterogeneous hydrogen gas. Loud. 
Enc. 195. But though cold represses it, yet this repression only causes it in the regions of frost and 
snow, to spring up, as soon as the brief season of heat occurs, with a rapidity which the temperate climates 
do not experience. A Lapland and Siberian Yew exhibits remarkably rapid vegetation, beginning and 
fruiting in a single month; thus 
July 1. — Snow gone. 
9. — Fields quite green. 
17. — Plants at full growth. 
25. — Ditto in flower. 
Aug. 2.— Fruit ripe 
18. — Snow. 
And from that time snow and ice to the 23rd June, when they begin to melt. 
It can lay dormant without expiring, in some species, when it seemed to have forsaken them. Thus 
Mosses £ are extremely tenacious of life; and after being long dried , easily recover their health and vigour 
by moisture. Their beautiful structure cannot be too much admired.’ Sir J. Smith, Intr. 493. 
This living principle has the singular property of remaining dormant and inert for years or ages, with- 
out therefore ceasing to exist. We all know that seeds may be kept a long while unsown, and yet grow 
whenever planted in a suited soil. This, again, is like animals that have been found inclosed in trees, and 
yet have revived. When plants are buried in the ground to a greater depth than is natural to them for 
their proper growth, they do not vegetate; but they do not therefore die; they retain their power of vege- 
tation to an unlimited period; and when, by any accident, brought so near the surface as to suit their 
evolution, they begin immediately to grow. If the ground in old established botanic gardens be dug much 
deeper than ordinary, it frequently happens, that species which have been long lost are recovered, from their 
seeds being latent in the soil. Ground that has not been disturbed for some hundred years, on being 
ploughed or turned up for any considerable depth, has frequently surprised the cultivator by the appearance 
of plants which he never sowed, and often which were then unknown to the country. A field that was thus 
ploughed up near Dunkeld, after a period of 40 years rest, yielded a considerable blade of Black Oats, 
without sowing. It could have been only from the plough’s bringing up to the surface seeds that had been 
formerly too deeply lodged for germination. — Loud. Encyc. Gard. 194. Some ground turned up in Bushy 
Park in winter, which had probably not been disturbed since the time of Charles I., was covered in the 
following summer with Tree Mignionette, Pansies, and Wild Raspberries, none of which grow in the neigh- 
bourhood. — Jesse’s Gleanings. This has arisen from ancient seeds becoming deeply covered, and there 
remaining inert, but yet retaining their principle of life. This principle has been ascertained to be capable 
of existing in this latent state for above two thousand years unextinguished, and springing again into active 
vegetation as soon as planted in a congenial soil. It even remains unimpaired in blighted corn, and will 
grow from that as vigorously as from the perfect seed. But yet, although thus abiding in vitality in its 
dormant state for an indefinite length of time, such is its delicacy of existence when once roused into its 
living action, that it perishes for ever if it be prevented from continuing its growth. 
This living principle can subsist in all its reproductive power in fruit trees, from one to two centuries, 
and in others for many more. Some of the poisons affect the activity of this principle, though they do not 
destroy it. 
But although we can observe these effects, we do not know what vegetable life really is. We can 
discern it to be something distinct and different from all the known material agencies of nature. These can 
excite and affect and assist the agency, but cannot without it do what it does, nor be what it is. We are 
therefore authorized to deem it a peculiar sui generis principle, as distinct in plants from their material laws 
.and substance, as life and instinct are in animals. 
