THE ELECTROCULTURE OF CROPS 611 



cases exercises a remarkable influence on plant life, but that, 

 on the other hand, many observers, with apparently as much 

 justification, insist that electricity, if it has any influence 

 at all on plant growth, has a harmful influence. The same 

 discrepancy appears both in the case of small- and large-scale 

 crop experiments. We shall attempt to correlate this dis- 

 crepancy with other plant physiological investigations and quote 

 parallel examples from recent electroculture research, and thus 

 we hope to impress on the reader that this discrepancy is 

 probably not due to a fault on one or other side of the authors 

 of these discordant observations, but to a lack of realisation 

 on both sides of the exact position of the problem — a lack of 

 knowledge of the life of the living plant, and a lack of know- 

 ledge of the experimental conditions of the electric discharge 

 employed. This discrepancy, which has lasted for a century 

 and a half, is not likely to be removed before a changed 

 outlook is brought about, but as soon as this results it seems 

 likely that out of all this apparently futile research on electro- 

 culture may arise a knowledge useful to mankind. This is 

 likely to be the case not only in the particular example of 

 electroculture, but in all that concerns stimulation of plants. 



The first detailed description of experiments comes from 

 the Abbe Nollet, the French court physicist, who, hearing of 

 Maimbray's experiments, tried some experiments himself in 

 the following year, 1 747. Nollet filled two pewter vessels with 

 similar samples of earth, and in the two vessels equal quantities 

 of mustard seed were sown. After two days one of the vessels 

 was subjected to the influence of the electric discharge for about 

 ten hours — namely, from 7 a.m. to 12 noon, and 3 to 8 p.m. 

 The other vessel was kept as control in the same room and at 

 the same temperature, Nollet pointing out the usefulness of 

 M. Reaumur's invention for measuring temperature. The 

 next day both vessels were exposed to the sun. On the day 

 following three seeds had germinated in the electrified vessel 

 and produced seedlings three lines high ; in the non-electrified 

 control no seeds had germinated. The experimental vessel 

 was again electrified in the evening, for three consecutive hours ; 

 the next morning it was found to contain nine seedlings seven 

 to eight lines high. At this time still no germinations had 

 taken place in the control vessel, although towards evening 

 the first seedling appeared in it. In the afternoon of this same 



