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and water under the action of the silent discharge, to the 

 increase in crop production resulting from the electric discharge. 



It was proposed by Gassner in 1909 that the beneficial 

 effects so often observed as a result of the electric discharge 

 are chiefly due to an influence on the transpiration rate. This 

 writer observed that more than twice as much water was 

 transpired by the plants subjected to the electric discharge 

 than the non-electrified control plants. He suggests that this 

 is simply brought about by the formation of air currents by 

 the silent electric discharge, and these alone would be sufficient 

 to explain the increase in evaporation. However, the general 

 criticism we have levelled against all the physiological experi- 

 ments dealing with electroculture hold for these as for all the 

 others. But that the water relations of the plant are influenced 

 by the electric discharge is an opinion fairly generally held. 

 Thus Nollet was struck with the more rapid rate of evaporation 

 from electrified liquids than from non-electrified. 



The respiration of plants under various electrical conditions 

 has formed the subject of an investigation by Knight and 

 Priestley published in Annals of Botany for 191 3. However, 

 these various electrical conditions are not those of the actual 

 electrocultural experiments in the field, and the results of 

 many of the experiments of these authors, as they themselves 

 admit, are of dubious interpretation on account of the 

 experimental arrangement. 



Recently a paper appeared by R. Stoppel in which the cause 

 of the movements of the leaflets of Phaseolns multiflorus was 

 traced down to atmospheric electrical changes, and the author 

 from this observation proceeds to far-reaching generalisations 

 as to the importance of atmospheric electricity in the life of the 

 plant. 



We see, therefore, that the physiological investigations in 

 reference to electroculture have dealt with numerous plant 

 processes : assimilation, transpiration, respiration, irritability, 

 protoplasmic movement. In no one case have the experiments 

 been conducted in such a way that they give us any information 

 as to the influence of any definite electrical conditions on any 

 one of these processes at any definite stage in the history of 

 any plant or any plant organ. How much farther off are they 

 therefore from even suggesting a solution of the problems of 

 electroculture ? 



