296 
(Bath Society, CoJ. III. p. 404). And it is well known to gardeners, that 
transplanting garden-leans forwards them in respect to time, but shortens 
the height of the stem. Hence transplanted vegetables grow less in height, 
as transplanted leans, and less branchy, as transplanted melons, but produce 
and ripen their seeds earlier; which is a great advantage in the short 
summers of this climate; and if the roots can be divided, as in wheat, or 
new scions can be produced by their being transplanted deeper, as also 
occurs in wheat, the quantity of the seed may also be wonderfully increased 
by transplanting, (See Phytologia, Sect. XII. 0.) 
Another mode of forwarding the production of seeds, and of sooner 
ripening them, consists in pruning off the viviparous tops or lateral shoots, 
which will bear no seeds at all, or only small or imperfect ones, in our 
northern summers. For this purpose, the cutting away the tops of leans 
and of peas, and the lateral branches of artichokes, after the first fruit-buds 
are formed, both forwards and enlarges the flowers and seeds , which remain, 
as more nourishment is derived to them. 
A due degree of warmth and of dryness seems to include the circum¬ 
stances principally required to ripen seeds. The warmth not only accelerates 
the various secretions of vegetables by increasing their irritability and 
consequent activity, but, after the mucilaginous, starchy, saccharine, and 
oily matters are secreted into proper reservoirs, may contribute perhaps 
chemically to their change into each other, or to their greater perfection. 
And the dryness of the air, whether hot or cold, is necessary to give perfect 
ripeness to seeds; as otherwise the due exhalation of the aqueous parts of the 
secreted fluids, which form the nutritive parts of seeds, does not properly 
proceed; and the seed gathered in this condition is liable to mildew in the 
barn or granary, or to become shrivelled and wrinkled, as it dries. 
It is believed in Scotland, that even the frosty nights of autumn contribute 
to ripen the late crops in that inclement climate, which some have ascribed 
to the moonlight, but, which I have indeed suspected, that the frost may in 
some measure effect by converting the mucilage of the grain sooner into 
starch. This I was induced to imagine by having observed that bookbinders’ 
paste, made by boiling wheat-flour in water, lost its adhesion after having 
been frozen; and also from a culinary observation, that when ice or snow is 
mingled with flour instead of water in making pancakes, that it much 
improves them; the truth of which I have heard boldly asserted, but never 
witnessed the experiment. 
