On the. Dormant Vitality of the Tobacco Seed. By W. S.
Stoakley, M. D., of Northampton county, Virginia.
A gentleman in my vicinity informed me that in cultivating
his land, last spring, he had occasion to plough it very deep, and
in doing so, he came in contact with something beneath the sur-
face, which he found by examination to be a brick wall, the
ground-work or cellar of a building. Wondering that he had
not discovered this before, (the land having been cultivated for
a number of years by him and this having lain there unobserved up
to this time,) he came to the conclusion that it might be a bank
of excellent manure. lie resolved to cut it out. He did so. Af-
ter digging several feet below the surface, he came to this layer
or stratum of manure (a mixture of lime and earth) which he
immediately carted out into his field. Ina short time he obser-
ved, where he had placed this manure, a beautiful and thrifty
plant, which, after it had attained some size, he found to be a
Tobacco plant, the seeds of which must have lain dormant “ up-
wards” of a century. For it has been longer than that since to-
bacco was raised in this county. *
* It was once the principal staple, but has not been planted for years.
The farm on which this “subterraneous wall was found, was
first purchased and paid for, in tobacco, as will be seen from the
following note from “Howe’s History of Virginia:
“ The labor of the colony, which had been for a long time mis-
directed in the manufacture of ashes, soap, glass, and tar, in
which they could by no means compete with Sweden and Russia,
and also in planting vines, which require infinite labor and at-
tention, and for which subsequent experiments have indicated the
climate to be unfit, was at length directed, by the extended use
of tobacco in England, almost exclusively to the cultivation of
that article. This commodity, always finding a ready price, and
affairs being now so regulated that each one could enjoy the fruits
of his labor, was cultivated so assiduously as to take the atten-
tion of the planters too much from raising corn, so that it became
scarce, and supplies had again to be looked for from England, or
purchased of the Indians. The fields, gardens, public squares,
and even the streets of Jamestown, were planted with tobacco,
and this becoming an article of universal desire, it became, to a
great extent, the circulating medium of the colony. Not only
private debts, but salaries and officer’s fees were paid in tobacco;
and the statute-book, to this day, rarely mentions the payment
of money, that it does not add, as an equivalent, ‘or tobacco.’ ”
Now, you will perceive from this, that it is probable that
the seeds of this plant may have lain dormant for more than two
hundred years. This wall, with which these seeds were buried,
was on a portion of the farm that had been cultivated by past
generations, and had not been discovered up to this time. Is it
not possible that they may have lain buried from the first settle-
ment of this part of the State ?
I send this to you, Messrs. Editors, as an illustration or veri-
fication of an interesting physiological fact. “ It is not sufficient
that the organizable material be perfect; the influence of
certain external agents are requisite to call into action the pecu-
liar properties of the organized structure, viz: heat, light, mois-
ture, electricity ” &c.