Be 
170 
they may either enfeeble the seeds or absolutely 
destroy their enclosed embryos. 
The preserving of seeds from the attacks of in- 
sects, field-mice, birds, and other depredators, is 
effected principally by steeps or other applica- 
tions of whale oil, stale urine, or any other sub- 
stance which, while not injuring the seeds, will 
long continue to emit an offensive odour. The 
Romans of ancient times used, for this purpose, 
the lees of oil, decoctions of cypress leaves, the 
juice of house-leeks, and some similar substances ; 
and the British and Continental farmers of the 
present day, in the case at least of wheat and 
barley and oat seeds, extensively use saline and 
caustic applications. 
The enriching of seeds with such coatings or 
saturations as shall produce similar effects to 
doses of suitable manure, is effected, in some 
instances, by processes which, at the same time, 
protect the seeds from grubs and fungi and un- 
favourable atmospheric influences. “ Public at- 
tention,” remarked Professor Johnston in 1844, 
“has lately been drawn in this country to the 
possibility of so manuring or otherwise doctoring 
the seeds of our usual grain crops, before they 
are put into the ground, as to do away with the 
necessity of manuring the soil itself. It has been 
long known to practical farmers that, by steep- 
ing their seeds in urine, in salt and water, or in 
other solutions, and sprinkling them while wet 
with quicklime, their growth is in many cases 
promoted, and the rust, smut, and similar dis- 
eases, ina great degree prevented. It has been 
observed also in regard to potatoes, that in some 
soils a dusting of lime makes the cuttings more 
productive than they would otherwise be, and 
that, when powdered with gypsum, they thrive 
still better. The absolute effect indeed of all 
such applications to the seed corn or to potatoes, 
will in every case be modified by the kind of 
soil in which the seed is sown. If the soil abound 
in common salt, the salting of the seed will be 
less efficacious, while if it be rich in lime or in 
gypsum, the dusting of the potatoes with these 
substances will produce a less striking effect. 
Yet the above observations of practical men show 
that it is possible in certain circumstances, and 
by the use of certain substances, so to doctor ‘or 
manure the seed we intend to sow, as to make 
the growth of our crop more sure, and the return 
of our harvests more abundant.” 
Some remarkable results, in this way, have 
already been obtained. Mr. Dalziell of Holm of 
Drumlanrig, four or five years ago, steeped seed- 
barley in diluted sulphuric acid, and found the 
crop from it better in all the stages of growth, 
and productive of eight bushels of grain more | 
per acre, than a corresponding crop from un- 
steeped seed. Tinzmann of Silesia, according to 
a report of experiments made to a meeting of 
agriculturists at Munich in 1844, found that the 
steeping of seed-barley, during six hours, in a 
dilution of sulphuric or muriatic acid, at the rate 
SEED. 
of about 5 lb. of acid per acre in 40 times its own 
weight of water, gave one-fourth more straw and 
grain than unsteeped seed,—that a similar dilu- 
tion and quantity of acid sprinkled over the 
ground before sowing, gave very little increase, 
—that steeping in pure water gave more straw 
than unsteeped seed, but a very slight increase 
of grain,—and that the steeping of wheat-seed, 
oat-seed, vetch-seed, turnip-seed, and grass-seeds 
in a dilution of muriatic but especially of sulphuric 
acid, gave more or less increase,—but that the 
acid must be used with caution, and sometimes 
diluted to a greater degree than in 40 times its 
weight of water, and that the success of the 
steeping is greatest in soils which have long been 
in good cultivation, and may not always be ob- 
servable on poor exhausted soils. Mr. James 
Campbell of Dundee, according to a communica- 
tion which he made to the Highland Society in 
1843, found that extraordinary vigour and pro- 
ductiveness in corn and herbage plants were ob- 
tained by steeping their seeds in single or mixed 
solutions of nitrate of soda, nitrate of potash, 
nitrate of ammonia, muriate of ammonia, and 
sulphate of ammonia,—that the various mixtures 
should consist of the salts exactly neutralized, 
and dissolved, in from 8 to 12 measures of water, 
—and that the duration of the steeping did best 
at from 8 to 10 hours with clover seeds, from 16 
to 20 hours with gramineous seeds, and from 50 
to 90 hours with corn seeds, yet not more than 
60 with barley seeds; and he afterwards offered 
his preparations, under the name of “ corn-grow- 
ing liquids,” for sale, and received considerable 
corroboration of the published results of his ex- 
periments from careful trials on the part of some 
distinguished agriculturists. M. Victor of Nei- 
derholm, in Hesse Darmstadt, according to a 
pamphlet published by him in 1843, found, from 
experiments conducted during five years, that 
corn plants acquired extraordinary vigour and 
productiveness, and at the same time escaped 
rust and other diseases, in consequence of first 
immersing the seeds in a semi-fluid mass of blood, 
oil, salt or sal ammoniac, powdered clay, linseed 
meal and water, and then so spreading them upon 
drying mixtures as to cause them to be coated with 
the preparation. Another German experimen- 
talist, Franz Heinrich Bickes, published in the 
same year a professed discovery of a method of so 
steeping or otherwise preparing all sorts of field. 
and garden seeds as to cultivate the soil without 
the aid of manure; and many other persons ‘of 
late years, in Britain but especially in Germany, 
have thought, in various ways, of fertilizing soils 
or invigorating crops by means of steeping seeds. 
Unhappily, most of the advocates of the new 
theory drive it to the length of extravagance or 
absurdity; and are not content to regard their 
respective methods of preparing seeds as simple 
or even important aids to fertility, but insist 
on their being complete substitutes for all ma- 
nure, or even agencies of far superior power to 
