Dr. W. J. Beal's Seed‐viability Experiment

In the autumn of 1879, Dr. Beal began an experiment to test the viability of the seeds of some of the more common plants growing in the vicinity of the Agricultural College at East Lansing, Michigan.Most 'of the seeds were those of common weeds.The first account of the experiment appeared in the Botanical Gazette for August, 1905.This gave the results for the first twenty-five years.In the 17th Report of the Michigan Academy of Science (1915) the results were published up to the fall of 1914.The nature of the experiment is best indicated by Dr. Beal himself, from whom I quote.He says: I selected fifty freshly grown seeds from each of twenty-three different kinds of plants.Twenty such lots were prepared with the view of testing them at different times in the future.Each lot or set of seeds was well mixed in moderately moist sand, just as it was taken three feet below the surface, where the land had never been plowed.The seeds of each set were well mixed with the sand and placed in a pint bottle, the bottle being filled and left uncorked, and placed with the mouth slanting downwards so that the water could not accumulate about the seeds.These bottles were buried on a sandy knoll in a row running east and west and placed fifteen paces northwest from the west end of the big stone set by the class of 1873.A boulder stone, barely even with the surface soil, was set at each end of the row of bottles, which were buried about 20 inches below the surface of the ground.