350 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, March 8, 1859. 
tilings. It'is safer to communicate moisture from below, 
or flood the surface by pouring the water on a piece of 
crock held close to the inside of the pot. The whole 
of the young tender things may thus be moistened with¬ 
out coming directly, as from a rose, on their tops. The 
previous moistening of the pots before sowing, in most 
eases of nicety, will supply the requisite moisture before 
the young seedlings are past danger. Care should also 
be taken in sowing tender things in pots, that the soil 
should be from a quarter of an inch to half an inch dis¬ 
tant from the rim. When pots are filled more full than 
that, a careless rose-watering will often send the seed out 
of the pot. Frequently when I have found a pot empty 
of seedlings, I have got them in abundance among the 
ashes, &c., in which the pots were plunged. If these 
little matters are attended to, I feel confident that less 
blame will be thrown on the backs of seedsmen ; most of 
whom make it a point of honour to do their very best for 
the gratification of their customers. 
Transplanting and Pricking Out. —When seeds 
are sown thickly in a bed out of doors, the young plants 
are injured when they stand long thick in the seed-bed, and 
are greatly improved by being pricked out,—such as 
Cabbages, &c., two or three inches apart in intermediate 
beds. This is even more necessary with all tender things, 
sown in pots, and placed in a higher temperature than the 
open air. If these are left long in the pot, and especially 
if at all thick and drawn up, however carefully watered, 
there is a great likelihood that many of the plants will 
rot and shank off at the surface of the soil. Mere thin¬ 
ning will not prevent the evil. The least carelessness will 
sometimes present you, on a morning, with a surface of 
slimy decaying matter, instead of the brisk little seedlings 
you admired yesterday. I have even had something of 
this, when, as I thought, I had seen that moisture, air, 
and a gradual hardening off were sufficiently attended to. 
I confess I have sometimes been nonplussed to assign 
the right cause for the disappointment. Pricking off, 
however, is the great preventive. In the case of small 
things—like Lobelias, Calceolarias, &c., there is no neces¬ 
sity to prick them individually ; for, if moved in little 
tufts, aud placed in other suitable soil, in pots, pans, or 
boxes, the danger of fogging off will be next to thoroughly 
obviated: and w r hen these little tufts increase in size, 
then you can pick out the largest first, and thus go over 
them all ultimately. The chief requirement in these prick¬ 
ings out, is to have nice light soil, suitably heated before 
using. When watered, use water quite as warm as the 
temperature of the house and pit, aud place the pricked- 
out plauts, for a time at least, in as high a temperature 
as the seed-pots stood in. Where room is scarce, the 
pricked-out plants need not occupy much more space than 
the seed-pots, if thus pricked out in patches half an inch 
apart; and the greater safety of the seedlings will more 
than compensate for the labour. Even thinning the seed- 
pot, and stirring the surface of the soil, and covering it 
with charcoal dust, though useful processes, have not such 
a salutary tendency as pricking the plants off, either 
singly, or in little patches. 11. Fish. 
(To be continued.) 
NOTES UPON SEEDS. 
Allow me to add my mite of praise for the valuable series of 
papers you are now publishing upon the “ Science of Gardening.” 
Practical horticulturists cannot be too thankful to the writer who 
thus places before them, in so intelligible, and, at the same time, j 
entertaining a form, the theory of the operations they daily carry 
into practice. 
I fully agree with the writer of those articles, that persons 
sending home seeds from abroad, should send them in canvass 
bags in preference to any other way; but there are some seeds 
which, it seems natural, should be sown as soon as they are ripe; 
and if the person abroad is sending home living plants as well as 
seeds, which is often the case, he cannot do better than sow these ! 
in the soil of his Wardian Case. I refer particularly to Palm seeds. 
If these were sown in the Cases, they would havo commenced 
germination before they reached our shores ; whereas, if sent dry, 
they, in many cases, lose their vitality altogether. Our native 
Oak furnishes an example of a tree, the seed of which should be 
sown as soon as ripe ; and there are many others to which this 
remark applies. On the other hand, many Beeds keep their 
vitality for a very longtime, even under ordinary circumstances,— 
this is especially the case with leguminous seeds. I have seen 
the seed of Acacia, &e., fully twenty years old, which, after 
soaking for a little time in warm w-ater, grew freely. 
But, to return to Palm seeds j these have a very peculiar way 
of germinating. They first throw out a thick fleshy root; after a 
time it splits on one side ; and from this opening the young leaves 
spring forth. The connection of ihc seed continues until the 
hard shell is emptied of its contents, and then the part above the 
leaves shrivels up. The seed of the double Cocoa-nut ( Lodoicea 
Sechellarum), weighing from ten to fifteen pounds, makes a root 
from two feet to two feet and a halt long, and as much ns four 
inches in circumference at a foot below the nut; but considerably 
1 smaller above and below. At this thickest part it splits longi¬ 
tudinally after some months, and the young leaf gradually makes 
its appearance. The plant continues attached to the seed for two 
or three years. In the seeds of Calamus and Arcca, which are 
not much larger than Peas, the principle is the same, but on a 
proportionably smaller scale, and is effected in a much shorter 
time. The Cycads germinate in the same manner. 
Xanthochymus and Garcinia throw the shoot from one end of 
the seed, and produce roots from the other, almost as though it 
were a tuber, 
The seeds of all the species of Nelumbium will lie for months 
in water, if in their natural condition ; but if slightly cracked 
with a hammer, or the hard shell worn down by rubbing on any 
rough surface until tho albumen is reached, they will germinate 
in two or three days. I have even seen them start within twenty- 
four hours, if in sufficient heat. How do they germinate in their 
native localities ? Some resident by the banks of the Nile, or the 
Ganges, might throw light on this interesting fact. 
Streptocarpus Rexii throws up its two-seed leaves like any 
other dicotyledonous plant, and produces its young leaves from 
the centre in the ordinary way ; but in S. Polyanthus , a very 
different operation occurs. In this species one cotyledon remains 
of its usual size, not larger than a pin’s head ; while the other 
continues to develope until it is a foot or fourteen inches long, by 
seven or eight inches wide. It makes no attempt, in its normal 
condition, to throw up other leaves from the centre; and the un¬ 
developed cotyledon gradually withers away. 
There is a great peculiarity about the seeds of Collomia. 
Noticing, that if placed in water, each appeared to bo surrounded 
with a hazy circle of mucus, I placed a little piece of the testa, or 
skin, of one of them under a strong compound microscope. "While 
dry, no unusual appearance presented itself, but the moment it 
was moistened with water, it began to throw out spiral threads in 
every direction, each thread being coated with mucus. Upon 
referring to the “ Botanical Register,” I find the subject thus 
mentioned under the title Collomia linearis: — ,l Thh genus, like 
several other genera of Polemoniaeere, is remarkable for a mucous 
matter in which the seeds are enveloped. If the seeds are thrown 
into water, this mucus instantly swells and forms round them like 
a cloud, and in a short time acquires a volume greater than that 
of the seed itself. Upon examining the cause of this singular 
phenomenon, it will be found to depend upon the presence of an 
infinite multitude of exceedingly' delicate and minute spiral 
vessels, lying coiled up, spire within spire, on the outside of the 
skin of the seed. When dry, these minute vessels are confined 
upon the surface of the skin by its mucus ; but the instant tho 
water is applied, the mucus dissolves, and ceases to counteract 
the elasticity of the spiral vessels, which then dart forward at 
right angles with the skin, each carrying with it a sheath of 
mucus, in which it for a long time remains enveloped, as if in a 
membranous case.”— Kai:l. 
CALCEOLARIA CULTURE. 
In your Number for February 22nd, appears an article on the 
above—a subject just now deeply interesting, as tending to throw' 
light on the many failures of late in this valuable bedding plant. 
I must own I do not quite understand your correspondent, 
who says, a portion of his success may be attributed to the aid 
