seedplot

The design of each was to be a church within a church, a seedplot of a more fervent piety, the center of a stricter discipline and a more energetic propagandism than existed in religious communities at large.

Introduction to the Science of Sociology Robert Ezra Park 1926

Preceptor or professor, looking over his miraculous seedplot, seminary as he well calls it, or crop of young human souls, watches with attentive view one organ of his delightful little seedlings growing to be men, -- the tongue.

Latter-Day Pamphlets Thomas Carlyle 1838

In what other set of people lies the seedplot of calumny against us?”); adv.

The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries 1851-1930 1908