(14 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, May 5,1857. 
Grass, which is cultivated in some parts of Germany for 
tho purpose, but likewise from the Fcsluca jiuitans , 
flote-fescue. Tho common method of collecting and pre¬ 
paring tho soods is this :—At sunrise they are gathered or 
beaten into a hair-sieve from the dewy grass; are spread 
on a sheet, and dried for a fortnight in the sun; they 
are then gently beaten with a wooden pestle in a wooden 
trough or mortar, with straw laid between the seeds and 
tho pestlo, till tho chaff comes off; they are then win¬ 
nowed. After this they are again put into the trough or 
mortar in rows, with dried marigold flowers, apple, and 
hazel loaves, and pounded till they appear bright; they 
are then winnowed again, and, being made perfectly clean 
by this last process, are fit for use. The marigold leaves 
are added to give the seed a liner colour. A bushel of 
seed with tho chaff yields only about two quarts of clean 
seed. When boiled with milk or wine it forms an 
oxtremcly palatablo food, and is in general made use of 
whole, in the manner of sago, to which it is, in most 
instances, proforrod. 
“The seed should bo sown as soon as it is ripe in the 
autumn, that tho young plants may have sufficient 
strongth boforo tho winter begins; by this mode of 
culture it will flowor and ripen the seed much earlier 
than tho time specified below; in that instance the 
seods wore sown in May. 
“It dolights most in a rich, light, siliceous soil. It 
flowers about the first woek of August, and the seed is 
ripe in tho middle of September.” 
A correspondent has taken the trouble to reprint the 
following statement from tho pages of a contemporary, 
and has sont it to us for our opinion :— 
“ Mrs. Hyacinth a Carswell says phe cannot make her 
seeds of annual plants grow; she lias bought them of 
Carter, and of Wrench, and of Nash and Minier, and is 
equally unsuccessful in every case. Even Mignonette 
refuses to come at her bidding. And yet she spares no 
pains, actually employs the gardener of a neighbouring 
Viscount to sow tho seods for her, and herself takes care 
that up vile slug or other molluscous forager sucks them 
up. Being a great admirer of Mrs. Loudon’s ‘ Hook of 
Annuals,’ sho is eager to watch and nurso all the pretty 
things that adorn the pages of that charming picture hook. 
And then comes a postscript correcting tho first statement 
by announcing that Clarkias and Collinsias and Godot,ias do 
come up—a circumstance sho had forgotten to mention. 
“Wearo not surprised at tho horticultural misfortunes 
that have overtaken Mrs. I lyacirttha, especially when wo 
look at tho. advico given to amateurs by sumo of our 
gardening friends, who take inflnito pains to explain what 
needs no explanation, and to omit exactly that which is tho 
essential tiling to know. Boforo roasting a hare it is 
necessary to catch it; boforo thinning, and manuring at tho 
very moment of projection, and tying plants neatly to 
sticks or hits ol hushes, it. is necessary to make tho soods 
I grow. Howto do it, is a question which great- gardeners 
can answor, hut sorely puzzles little ones. 
“Shall wc he believed when we say that it is a, mere affair 
of temperature ? Or rather, can any one doubt it'/ Tim 
seeds that will not grow come from countries in which tho 
earth is far warmer than hero; Mignonette, for instance, 
from the N. ol Alncn, Comas and Arctotids from the Cape 
o Good Hope, Ithodanthes and 11cliclirysums from New 
Holland, in all which countries the earth is more heated 
than with us. Seeds cannot grow unless they are submitted 
to a certain amount of warmth, below which they die after 
a few weeks' exposure. In this respect they are like eggs , 
which arc addled if kept in an unnaturally low temperature. 
Now, the month of April, or even the end of March, is 
seized upon by eager amateurs as the time at which to sow 
their annual seeds. But the mean temperature of the 
surface soil near London in March may be taken, in round 
numbers, to he as low as 41 degrees, and in all April as 
40^ degrees ; the temperature of the corresponding months 
in North Africa, the Cape, or Australia, is, however, at least 
10 degrees higher, an enormous difference in its effect upon 
plants; and such an amount of warmth is not gained in 
this country before the end of May at the soonest. It is no 
wonder, then, that the tender seeds of the warm parts of the 
world should perish when thrown too early upon the chilly 
soil of this northern region. If our fair complainant will 
moderate her zeal, and wait with patience till May before 
she begins seed-sowing, she will find her Mignonette, as 
well as her other delicate flower-seeds springing up willingly 
enough, and she will no longer complain of her seedsmen, 
who are in no way to be blamed. The mere fact of her 
Clarkias, and Collinsias, and Godetias coming up where 
other seeds perish as we say, wont grow as Mrs. Hyacintha 
thinks, is a proof of the truth of the explanation we have 
given. They grow because they come from a climate like 
our own, and the cold that kills other seeds is congenial to 
them. 
“ It excites no surprise in us that a Cocoa-nut will not 
grow if planted in a flower border; astonishment is reserved 
for more familiar plants. And yet there is no reason what¬ 
soever why the Cocoa-nut should not shoot as well as the 
Acorn, except that greatest of all reasons, namely, that the 
earth is never warm enough to excite its vital forces into 
activity.’’ 
The writer of these assertions has assumed the 
experience of “great gardeners” without bringing such 
experience to bear on tho question submitted to him. 
Great gardeners know that cold docs no harm to seeds 
as long as they lie dormant in the ground. That seeds 
ol tender exotic plants can bear many degrees of frost 
with impunity is well known to most gardeners, great 
and small. After a very sovoro winter most of our 
garden annuals which shed their seeds in tho autumn 
will appear 1 a to in tho spring if tho ground has not 
boon disturbed, but during a mild winter many of them 
will germinate, and perish immediately on tho first 
change to cold or Irost. No degree of frost known in 
ilieso latitudes ofiocts tho seed of Mignonotto if it lies 
in drained land. I ho seeds of tho Indian Balsam 
Known as yldndul'ifcvii, a very tender plant, are more 
tenacious ol lilo than Mignonette, for wo see their pro¬ 
duce springing up on all kinds ».f unfavourable soils after 
tho Kovorosl, winters. The so-called China Asters are 
equally exempt from tho ('Hoots of cold . t he I'ortulaooas- 
tlio bluo Lobelias, and oven seeds of the Mmmhry- 
anthemum tricolor wo liavo known to vegetate most freely 
niter lying oil the huiThoo of (lie borders and on the 
gravo! walks from Hoptomher fill May. from these facts, 
which others can easily multiply from their own ex¬ 
perience, if may ho known that we liavo no faith in the 
theory which touches that, mere oohl is in any degree 
in jurious to the soods of garden iiimuals 
From other «"' 1 very different onuses arises the failure 
of our hardy annuals. “Spring brings the seedlings 
lorth with many smiles, hut onoo delivered kills them 
with a IVovvn." 
1111 ,f i ns (rue as poetical, lor severe 
hosts kill many mioh juveniles. There an', however, 
