THE VITALITY OF BURIED SEEDS 1 
*By W. L. Goss 
Botanist , Seed Testing Laboratory , Bureau of Plant Industry, United States 
Department of Agriculture 
The distribution and perpetuation of 
plants depends largely upon seeds. As 
far back as anything is known of the 
human race, man has used seeds for 
plant propagation. Comparatively few 
species of plants contribute directly to 
the needs of man, and he has chiefly 
interested himself in these few. The 
great remaining flora depends for its 
reproduction and distribution upon 
natural conditions. Many plants have 
effective devices for the scattering of 
their seed, and often the seeds them¬ 
selves are safeguarded by a dormant or 
resting period which prevents them 
from germinating until the occurrence 
of favorable seasonal conditions. How 
long seeds are capable of remaining 
viable has always been an interesting 
question, and extravagant statements 
have frequently been made regarding 
the germination of seeds of great age. 
The general impression has prevailed 
that seeds of various plants are able 
to retain their vitality for long periods, 
although buried in the soil. There is 
in the literature frequent mention of 
plants resulting from bringing to the 
top former surface soil which for some 
reason was buried for a period of years. 
Such statements and a desire to ob¬ 
tain accurate data prompted Ewart (4) 2 
to test for germination many herbarium 
samples of seed of known age. Many 
of the seeds which grew were over a 
hundred years old. 
The Gardener’s Chronicle in 1894 (1 ) 
cited a case of a charlock-infested field 
which was put down to grass and per¬ 
manent pasture. After 23 years a 
loaded wagon drawn across the field in 
the spring when the ground was soft 
brought subsoil to the surface, and in 
the following summer a ribbon of 
charlock grew in the wheel tracks. 
Peter (7) obtained soil samples from 
various depths in several old forests 
where the soil had not been disturbed 
for many years. From these samples he 
was able to grow seedlings and later to 
identify the resulting plants. Other 
similar cases indicate that many seeds 
can remain alive in the soil, but the 
length of time is largely speculative. 
The first attempt, so far as is known 
to the writer, to obtain specific data on 
the length of time seeds are able to 
retain their vitality while buried in the 
soil was made by the late Dr. W. J. 
Beal, of Michigan Agricultural College. 
In 1879 he buried at East Lansing, 
Mich., 20 inverted open-mouthed bot¬ 
tles, each bottle containing 50 seeds of 
each of 20 species. One of these bot¬ 
tles has been taken up every 5 years, 
the last report (#) being made after 40 
years, at which time 10 of the 20 species 
produced sprouts. 
Munerati (6) planted definite num¬ 
bers of seeds of several species near the 
surface of the soil in small squares in an 
open field which had been kept free 
from weeds for a number of years. He 
removed the seedlings as they appeared, 
keeping a monthly record of the per¬ 
centage of sprouts. After six years 
some apparently sound seeds were dug 
up. Kozma (5) buried seeds at vary¬ 
ing depths (8, 15, 30, and 50 cm.) in 
sandy and in loamy soil and recorded 
the sprouts as they appeared during 
four and a half years. He compares the 
effect of loamy and sandy soil on vitality 
and on the ability of the several species 
to come up through the different soil 
depths. In 1902 Dr. J. W. T. Duvel, 
of the Seed Laboratory, U. S. Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, started the 
buried seeds experiment, the progress 
of which this paper describes. He 
followed the general plan of Dr. Beal 
but used seeds of a larger number of 
species and subjected them to more 
natural conditions. 
For the experiment Duvel used 112 
samples of seed, representing 107 
species. A fixed number of each kind 
of seed was mixed with sterilized soil 
taken from the pit where the seeds were 
to be buried. The mixture of seed and 
soil was placed in common flower pots. 
These pots, each covered with a porous 
saucer, were arranged in sets and 
buried in the soil at Arlington Experi- 
1 Received for publication June 30, 1924—issued January, 1925 
2 Reference is made by number (italic) to “Literature cited,” p. 362. 
Journal of Agricultural Research, 
Washington, D. C. 
( 349 ) 
Vol. XXIX, No. 7 
Oct. 1, 1924 
Key No. G-466 
