“According to their kind, seeds retain for a longer or shorter period their power of germinating; but why this vitality is more enduring in one instance and less so in another, we cannot tell. Neither the bulk of the seed nor the character of its outside coverings, nor the presence or absence of a perisperm, appears to decide its longevity. Such and such a seed lives for whole years, even centuries, while another loses its germinating power in a few months, from no cause that we can discover. Thus the seeds of the angelica will not come up unless they are sown immediately after maturing; but beans have been known to germinate after being kept more than a hundred years, and rye after a hundred and forty. Excluded from the air, certain seeds may be kept for centuries, always ready to germinate whenever favorable conditions shall present themselves. This explains why strawberry, bluet, and camomile seeds from ancient tombs have germinated just as new seeds would have done. Finally, rush seeds have been made to germinate that were dug up from great depths in the Island of the Seine, the original site of Paris. Doubtless those seeds dated from the time when Paris, under the name of Lutetia, consisted of a few mud and reed huts on the marshy borders of the stream. But despite these remarkable exceptions let us never forget that recent seed is preferable to old for sowing; it comes up better and in greater abundance. “We have just seen that certain seeds are very slow in coming up, as for example the peach, apricot, and plum, whose thick shells resist the moisture required for germination. Put directly into the ground in the very places that the young plants are to occupy later, these seeds would be exposed to not a few dangers during their leisurely germination. Prolonged rains might make them rot; various marauders that are partial to them, such as rats, field-mice, jays, magpies, and crows, might dig them up and devour them. Besides, they would occupy for a long time, with no profit to any one, the ground in which they had been planted. All these objections are avoided by making a preliminary planting after a method known as stratification, from the Latin word stratum, meaning bed or layer. In a large, deep earthen pan, with holes in its bottom, or in any other suitable receptacle, such as a box, a pot, or a tub, likewise pierced with holes, it is the practice to place first a layer of small pebbles. The holes at the bottom and this layer of pebbles are to give easy access to the air and drain off the excess of water after each irrigation. Next comes a bed of fine sandy soil, then a layer or stratum of seeds arranged side by side, and on top of that a second bed of earth. On this is placed another stratum of seeds, which in its turn is covered with earth; and so the process goes on with alternating layers of seeds and earth until the receptacle is full. Then it is watered and placed in a cellar or a dark shed. All