Some curious and all but forgotten experiments of much interest to agriculture and gardening, observes a London paper, have lately been revived by a German savant. Very many years ago it was discovered and recorded that water saturated with camphor had a remarkable influence upon the germination of seeds. Like many another useful hint, the stupid world took no notice of this intimation; but a Berlin professor came across the record of it, and he appears to have established the fact that a solution of camphor stimulates vegetables as alchohol does animals. He took seeds in various sorts of pulse, some of the samples being three or four years old, and therefore possessing a slight degree of vitality. He divided these parcels, placing one moiety of them between sheets of blotting-paper simply wetted, and the other under strictly similar conditions between sheets soaked in the camphorated water. In many cases the seeds did not swell at all under the influence of the simple moisture, but in every case they germinated where they were subjected to the camphor solution. The experiment was extended to different kinds of garden seeds, old and new, and always with the same result of showing a singular awakening of dormant vitalism and a wonderful quickening of growth.

It also appears from the professor's researches that the young plants thus set shooting continued to increase with a vigor and vivacity much beyond that of those which are not so treated. On the other hand, when pounded camphor was mixed with the soil, it appeared to exercise a rather bad effect upon the seeds. The dose in this latter case was possibly too strong. At all events there is here a line of inquiry well worth following up by seedsmen and gardeners; and even farmers might try how far wheat and barley would profit from the strange property which seems to be possessed by this drug over the latent life of vegetable germs.

Rustic Flower Stand For The Lawn - Corresponding Editors: Josiah Hoopes, James Taplin Vol.29. November, 1874. No.341