Note 37 — PART I.

In order to try the experiment fairly, seeds taken from ants' nests, or seeds of the same species as those which are habitually found in ants' nests, should be placed at different depths in the earth and examined after the lapse of six or eight months.

Why it is that certain seeds resist the influences which destroy the vitality of other seeds of closely allied species is another and a very curious but complicated problem, the explanation of which may perhaps lie in the different chemical properties of the seeds in question, in the more or less permeable character of their seed-coats, or their general texture.