158 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
STEEPING SEEDS. 
For the purpose of stimulating the growth of plants, 
various solutions have been employed for steeping the 
seeds. The substances thus employed have been nitrate 
of soda, nitrate of potash, or salt-petre, muriate of am¬ 
monia, sulphate of ammonia, &c., &c. Salt-petre has 
long been used, in some form, as a fertilizer, and nitrate 
of soda has within a few years been recommended as 
a subs.itute, in some respects preferable. So far as we 
have learned, however, the effect of nitrate of soda ap¬ 
pears to be rather to produce vegetable fibre or straw, 
than grain or seed; and hence it has latterly given place 
to muriate of ammonia in the preparation of solutions. 
Many experiments which have been made in Europe, 
show that wheat, barley, oats, peas, and beans, have been 
considerably increased in yield by the seed having been 
soaked in solutions of the last named substance. The 
trials which have been made in this country, have as yet 
been comparatively few, though some results which 
were l^ade known by experiments last year, have indi¬ 
cated an important benefit from the application of the 
article to Indian corn. 
One of the best examples which occurs to us of the 
benefits derived from the muriate of ammonia, is fur¬ 
nished by the experiments of Dr. £. Webber of Charles¬ 
town, N. H., reported in the N. E. Farmer. Dr. W. 
used a solution for soaking corn as follows; He dissolv¬ 
ed a small piece of the muriate of ammonia, estimated at 
four or five grains, in about half a coffee cup of water, 
and threw into the solution a handful of corn, which, 
after having remained four or five hours, was planted. 
He planted this soaked corn in hills, side by side with 
that which was not soaked. In four different cases 
which are reported, the soaked seed produced much the 
largest yield—generally full one third more. The land 
was light and dry, and for several of the experiments, 
the poorest spots were purposely taken. The corn suf¬ 
fered from drouth, but in all cases that from the soaked 
seed manifested a decided superiority, and frequently 
attracted the attention of strangers who knew nothing 
of the cause. 
^ Ammoniacal liquor, which is produced by the distilla¬ 
tion of coal in the manufacture of gas, is thought to be 
a valuable manure. Mr. Hannam, in his Essay on Waste 
Manures, describes th'S liquid as being “an impure so¬ 
lution of the carbonate of ammonia, and is the very gis 
which is evolved during the decomposition of animal 
snbstancf s, and which escapes from our manure-heaps 
during fermentation. “It is,” (he continues,) “ highly 
necessary to vegetation—the plant extracting the carbon 
of its s ructure from the carbonic acid, and its nitrogen 
from the ammonia of the carbonate of ammonia. The 
.gas liquor holds in solution acetate, sulphate, or muriate, as 
well as carbonate of ammonia; in all of which states it 
is fitted to promote the giowth of plants. The general 
average of its ammonia, in one or other of these forms 
of combination, according to Professor Johnston, is from 
twenty to forty pounds per one hundred gallons.” 
Judge Koon of this city made some trials with the am¬ 
moniacal liquid last season. He informs us that its ef¬ 
fects were in all cases highly beneficial. Corn and oats 
soaked in the liquid for thirty hours before planting, 
showed a broader and greener leaf, produced larger 
heads and ears, and yielded, he thinks, at least twenty 
per cent more than that without the liquid—the treat¬ 
ment being in all other respects, similar. 
Mr. Campbell, of Scotland, has become distinguished 
for the preparations of steeps for seed grain, which in 
some cases appear to produce remarkable effects. The 
salts he uses are sulphate, nitrate, and muriate of ammo¬ 
nia; nitrates of soda and potash, and combinations of 
these. Mr. Col man gives, in the second part of his 
European Agriculture, a letter from Mr. Campbell, in 
reference to the advantage of using these steeps. He 
mentions the following experiments in illustration of the 
comparative productiveness of prepared and unprepared 
seed. Some seed-wheat, soaked in nitrate of ammonia, 
was sown on the 5th of July, which, by the lQth of Au¬ 
gust, he says, presented the following results : “ The pre¬ 
pared seeds had tillered into nine, ten, and eleven stems; 
the unprepared into only two, three , and four; and both 
were from the same sample of seed, and sown in the same 
soil, side by side. The time of steeping varied from 
fifty to ninety.four hours, at a temperature of about 60 
degrees Fahrenheit.” The yield of grain from these 
plants, was not known at the time Mr. Colman sent the 
account for publication, but we may expect to hear fur¬ 
ther particulars hereafter. 
A year ago, a pamphlet was published by a German 
chemist named Bickes, in which it was declared that 
seeds may be so treated as to render unnecessary any 
manuring of the soil in which they are to be sown, and 
that even from the most barren sands, luxuriant crops 
may be gathered. Indeed the wonderful virtue of this 
newly discovered process seemed hardly less, from the 
representations given, than were formerly attributed to 
the “ philosopher's stone.” It can, however, serve but 
little purpose to occupy space, or spend time in reading 
the accounts of this supposed discovery, as the author 
only imparts a knowledge of its nature and constituents 
to such as pay for it. Professor Johnston, in a notice of 
the pamphlet of M. Bickes, in the Edinburgh Quarterly 
Journal of AgriCullure, observes that—“He is one of 
that class of discoverers who wish to sell their secrets, 
and by magnifying their importance, hope to derive a 
larger profit by divulging them. With such men the 
true friends of agriculture can have no sympathy.” 
As a steep for Indian corn, we should prefer muriate 
of ammonia, which we would use in the following man¬ 
ner: An ounce of the article, (costing two cents,) is 
deemed sufficient for a quart of corn. It should be dis¬ 
solved in a sufficient quantity of water to fairly cover the 
seed, which may remain in the solution twenty-four 
hours, in a temperature of sixty to seventy degrees. In 
order to demonstrate as clearly as possible the effects of 
the solution, the trial should be conducted with the 
strictest care and precision. We can think of no better 
mode than to plant alternately two rows with seed from 
the solution, and the same number with seed without any 
preparation—extending the experiment to ten, twelve, or 
more rows of each—the soil and the management to be 
as nearly equal as possible over the whole. Let the 
product of the rows to which the solution was applied, 
as well as the other rows, be carefully weighed and 
compared, and the result will indicate the value of the 
solution to the crop. 
Solutions, and the application of various substances to 
seeds, for the purpose of preventing the attacks of insects, 
have been recommended and used. The success of most 
of the experiments of this kind, seems rather doubtful. 
So far as relates to insects which feed on the blade only, 
we have never witnessed the least effect from applica¬ 
tions of any kind to the seed, though we have seen many 
substances used. The most formidable enemy to grain 
crops in the early stages of growth, is the wire-worm, 
(a species of Elater.) This worm bores into the seed, 
'eats out its substance, and frequently destroys the plant 
by eating off the radicle as soon as it protrudes from the 
kernel. The attempt has been made to apply some sub¬ 
stance to the seed which would render it disagreeable to 
the worm. It has been soaked in solutions of sulphate 
of iron, (copperas,) &c., and coated with compositions 
of tar and arsenic. To us, it seems not unreasonable k to 
suppose that these substances would lend to make the ker¬ 
nel unpalatable food for the worm, though it seems ge¬ 
nerally admitted that the tar is not favorable to the growth 
of the plant. The substances used to prevent the attack 
of worms, are likewise used to prevent the grain from 
being pulled up by birds and squirrels. Those who have 
tried them, state that after a few plants have been pulled 
up, the birds, finding the kernel in an uneatable state, 
abandon the attempt to find food in that way. 
As regards the prevention of the wire-worm, howev¬ 
er, other means have been recommended, which in some 
instances at least, seem to have had the desired effect. It 
has been noticed that the wire-worm will feed on pieces 
of corn cobs, and this has led to the practice of drop¬ 
ping pieces of cobs with the corn. The worms burrow 
into the cobs instead of the corn. "We have seen instan¬ 
ces where this remedy succeeded to considerable extent, 
as was ascertained by digging up the pieces of cobs put 
