110 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE A YD COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ February S, 1885. 
and were the large sprouts the best, we should soon have found it to our 
advantage to grow them, hut we did not. This winter we have some 
thousands of bearing plants of the old Dalkeith variety, and they are 
exceedingly good, being small, compact, hard, and excellent in flavour, 
and they turn out whole after boiling—a very important point. Next to 
the Dalkeith I would place Scrymgeour’s and Webb’s Matchless, which is 
a very desirable form.— A Kitchen Gardener. 
NATIONAL AURICULA AND NATIONAL CARNATION 
AND PICOTEE SOCIETIES (SOUTHERN SECTION). 
In reference to my vote at the meeting on December 9th, I desire 
now to state that I joined the Societies a month before the meeting, as 
the Secretary’s receipt fully shows. I did not join with the intention 
of opposing any individual, and as showing conclusively that I had no 
personal animus against either Mr. Dodwell or Mr. Dean, I voted with 
them on one division and against Mr. Douglas. Mr. Dodwell having 
acknowledged his mistake, I have only to add that I have received the 
following satisfactory letter from Mr. Richard Dean 
“Ealing, London, W. 
T _ . “January 30th, 1885. 
“ To Mr. J. Wright, J ’ 
“of the Journal of Horticulture, 
“ 171, Eleet Street, E.C. 
“Dear Sir, —The Journal of Horticulture of yesterday’s date has just 
reached me, and I am made aware for the first time of the fact that 
Mr. E. S. Dodwell was in error in applying the term “ fraud ” to your 
vote on December 9th last. 
In making the public statement I did in reference to your vote on this 
occasion, I did so on the authority of Mr. Dodwell as the Treasurer of the 
Societies, and in tine full belief it was correct. But I cannot allow him to 
stand alone in acknowledging the error and offering you an apology. I 
therefore tender you my expression of regret, and I do it unreservedly and 
of my own free will. 
“ Tou are at liberty to make any use of this letter you please. 
“ I am, dear sir, 
“ Yours very faithfully, 
“Richard Dean.” 
This closes the comedy of errors, and I am glad to feel without any 
prejudice to private friendship. My hope is that the Societies will 
receive such support as will render them prosperous, and I think there 
need be no apprehension that in future harmony will not prevail among 
the members.— J. Wright. 
THE GERMINATION OF SEEDS. 
( Continued from page 85.) 
[A lecture delivered before the Institute of Agriculture, South Kensington, March 
81st, 1884, by Professor G. T. Bettany, M.A., B.Sc., F.L.S.] 
Having now reviewed the condition of the seed when ripe, let us 
determine wbat shall be regarded as the close of germination. One way 
of determining this is to take the period when the plant would die if 
grown in the dark as the end of germination. For it is well known that 
seeds can germinate completely in the dark if supplied with a sufficient 
quantity of water and kept at a suitable temperature. As an actual fact 
it is found that most plants begin to take up food from the air by green 
leaves considerably before all the reserve food in their seeds has been used 
up. Gradually they pass from the condition of germination to that of 
youthful independence ; and perhaps the best definition of the cessation 
of germination is that period when the young plant ceases to draw upon 
the reserve in the seed. 
The young Turnip or Wheat plants, springing from comparatively 
small seeds, are much earlier independent than Peas or Beans. So also 
the Maize, grown in the dark, has such a considerable store in its seed 
that it can live for seven or eight weeks, and then the embryo food is 
found to be used up. 
Between these two extremes of the ripe, hard, dry seed and the young 
plant in vigorous life with a strong hold upon the earth by means of 
numerous root-fibres and a multiplicity of absorbing root-hairs, with a 
succulent stem growing every day firmer and mere capable of supporting 
the weight of numerous leaves, and with leaves in sufficient abundance to 
abstract enough carbon for the building-up of the plant substance from the 
air, we have to survey the changes, material, chemical, or other, which 
occur. 
The first thing necessary to the germinating seed is water. Until the 
seed lias swelled it cannot be said to be started on its course of germina- 
tion. The seed, on an average, may contain about 10 per cent, of water, 
much of it involved in the very chemical structure of the starch, cell- 
membrane, and albuminoids of which it is composed. This is nothing 
like sufficient as a medium with which to carry on active changes. The 
amount of water absorbed by seeds before the commencement of germina¬ 
tion proper is Wheat, 45 per cent. ; Maize, 40 per cent. ; Peas, 106 per 
cent. ; various Beans, 100 per cent. : 1000 grammes of air-dry Kidney 
Beans containing 12. per cent, of water were weighed, and after twenty- 
four hours soaking in water the cotyledons contained 767 grammes of dry 
substance and 1004 grammes of water. When the skin and radicle 
had got well developed, the cotyledons contained 708 grammes of dry 
substance and 1397 grammes of water. When the cotyledons had become 
greeD, and emerged from the seed-skin, they contained 508 grammes of 
dry substance and 1816 grammes of water. At the end of germination, 
when the cotyledons had very much shrunk, they contained 228 grammes 
of dry substance and 1772 grammes of water. Comparing the relations of 
water to the cotyledons and to the rest of the embryo—namely, the young 
bud, stem, and root, minus the cotyledons, at the end of twenty-four 
hours’ soaking, the embryos, minus cotyledons, contained 5 grammes of dry 
substance and 11 grammes of water. When the stem and ’'°dicle had 
become well developed the same gave 18 grammes dry substau -id 180 
grammes of water ; at the third period 107 grammes of dry substance and 
1247 grammes of water ; at the end of germination, 283 grammes of dry 
substance and 3222 grammes of water. 
This will suffice to show the enormous importance of water in germina¬ 
tion, constituting nine-tenths of the weight of the plant at its close, and 
furnishing the most striking contrast to the condition of the ripe seed. It 
is impossible, indeed, to over-estimate the necessity of a suitable abund¬ 
ance of water in securing satisfactory germination. The plant will hot in 
so doing take up more than it can dispose of. It puts all its water to the 
best use, as the vehicle of all the transport of material that necessarily 
takes place in it, as a necessary ingredient in the living and moving 
protoplasm of its cells, and in enabling the reserve materials of the seed 
to take a soluble form. Only one other ingredient from outside is 
essential to the progress of germination, and that is oxygen. The access 
of free atmospheric oxygen is as needful for the young plant as for the 
young animal. 
It follows from this that seeds must not be too deeply buried, other¬ 
wise the access of oxygen may be too limited for their proper develop¬ 
ment, in addition to the amount of the sun’s heat growing deficient as we 
recede from the surface. Some interesting experiments have been made 
to decide at what depth below the surface the largest proportion of seeds 
would germinate. In the case of Cat’s-tail Grass (Phleum pratense), 100 
per cent, germinated at four-tenths of an inch deep ; the proportion 
diminished to 92 per cent, at inch deep, when a great fall was observed ; 
and between a depth of 3 and 5 inches, less than one-third of the seeds 
germinated. In regard to Indian Corn, there was a considerable 
difference ; less than half came up when laid close to the surface, two- 
thirds sprouted at 1 inch or more beneath, while the full per-centage only 
germinated when the seeds were buried 3 inches deep. With Trifolium, 
agaiD, the greatest number sprouted when sown close to the surface, 
within half an inch ; while, when they were buried inch, only one- 
sixth were successful. On the whole, there is preponderant evidence in 
favour of seeds being sown near the surface as to their probabilities of 
successful germination ; although in practical agriculture this matter is, 
we are only too well aware, complicated by the risk of their being eaten 
by birds and other enemies, who often get much more of our carefully 
stored and selected seeds than are allowed to reproduce their kind. 
But another consideration enters into this matter of the depth to which 
seeds may be buried, and this must be referred to later in speaking of the 
relative size of seeds. At the present moment it is desirable to speak of 
the mineral ash present in all seeds, associated with the cell-membrane, 
the starch, and most especially the albuminous or nitrogenous matters of 
the seed. Although it is not known precisely in what way the salts con¬ 
stituting the ash are associated with or essential to the life of the plant, 
it is quite certain that they are essential, and even that during germina¬ 
tion an additional quantity becomes absorbed. The total ash of ripe seeds 
varies from 2 to 4 per cent, of the dry weight. In winter Wheat one- 
third of this quantity was found to be potash, and nearly one-half 
phosphoric acid in a combined form. One-eighth was magnesia ; and 
there is no mistaking the significance of the potash, the magnesia, and 
the phosphate, as showing that a due supply of these ingredients is of the 
highest importance to the formation of suitable seeds. It is evident that 
there is a close connection between the nitrogenous bodies and phosphates, 
although it is impossible at present to say with confidence what the 
relation may be. But, as an actual fact, germination is impossible with¬ 
out this ash, and without its travelling from the situations in which it 
occurs in the ripe seed to those new parts which soon begin to appear 
when germination has set in. Other ingredients of the ash of Wheat, in 
much smaller quantities than the three principal ones I have mentioned, 
are soda, lime, iron, oxide, silica, and a little chlorine and sulphur. In 
Peas we find more potash than in Wheat, and less phosphate and magnesia, 
but both the lime and the sulphur are in larger proportion. 
(To be continued.) 
The schedules of the National Carnation, Picotee, and 
Auricula Societies (Southern Section) are now issued, and from 
them it appears that the dates of the respective shows are—the Auriculas 
on April 21st, and the Carnations on July 28th, both to be held in the 
conservatory of the Royal Horticultural Society, South Kensington. 
- At the annual meeting of the Wirral Rose Society it was 
decided that the next Show be held in Hamilton Square, Birkenhead, 
Cheshire, on Saturday, 18th July, 188-5, and also that in future the gold 
medal of the National Rose Society be open for competition to all 
amateurs in Lancashire and Cheshire, aDd uo a formerly to those 
