BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 323 
cases the special point of the germination of the charlock-seeds 
has rarely been observed so attentively, year after year, as it has 
been in the present instance; and it is altogether unusual for a 
cultivated field to be so long deprived of barn-yard manure as this 
one has been. The observation seems worthy of record, because 
it has been somewhat carefully made under exceptional conditions 
and because it tends to support the ordinary impression of farmers 
that charlock-seeds can retain their vitality for long periods when 
buried in the earth. It is of course very difficult to prove a point 
like this, but it is none the less desirable that whatever of truth 
there may be in the popular impression shall be exemplified and 
placed as far as possible beyond doubt or dispute. To this end 
such evidence as can be collected should be put upon record and 
taken for what it is worth. It is important at all events that the 
opinion now prevailing among naturalists, that few seeds can long 
retain their vitality should be qualified in so far as may be neces- 
sary to bring it into harmony with all the facts of practical experi- 
ence. When the best possible conditions for preserving each kind 
of seeds shall have been discovered, the reasons of the: present 
diversity of opinion as to the endurance of the germinative power 
will doubtless be made plainer than they are now. 
It would be interesting to continue these observations upon the 
Plain-field for a long series of years, since it would probably not 
be easy to find so favorable an opportunity elsewhere. 
As good examples among the numerous instances that have been 
recorded of the long-continued endurance of seeds I would refer to 
President Timothy Dwight’s* description of instances of mustard, 
&c. growing after many years, when old fields are broken up; to 
Thoreau’s+ observations of strange plants that grew in the cellar 
of a very old house at Concord soon after the destruction of the 
house; and to H. yon Mohl’s{ remarks on plants growing in new 
railway cuttings. 
October, 1881. 
7 
* In his ‘‘ Travels in New England and New York.” New Haven, 1821, 2. 
pp. 440-442. 
+ ‘‘ Abstracts of Returns of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts,” 
1860, p. 22. 
+ Hoffmann’s ‘‘ Jahresbericht der Agricultur-Chemie,” 1866, 9. pp. 164, 165. 
