EXPERIMENTS WITH WATER CULTURES. 



13 



A SBIPLE METHOD FOR EXPERIMENTS WITH 

 WATER CULTURES. 



By Burton Edward Livingston. 



The methods commonly in use for fixing seedlings in jars for 

 water cultures usually involve absorbent cotton or some similar 

 material the purpose of which is to hold the plants in place. One 

 of the most frequent causes for the failure of such experiments is 

 the accidental moistening of this material and the subsequent 

 growth of fungi therein, which sooner or later causes injury to 

 the stems at the points of fixation and often result in damping off. 

 Furthermore, these methods of wedging the plant stems into 



lniffti% 





Fig. 2. Method of germinating seeds on paraffin-coaled disks floated by 



means of cork stoppers. 



openings in cork stoppers or other jar covers always require con- 

 siderable care in preparation and more dexterity in manipula- 

 tion than is possessed by the average student of plant physiology, 

 at least in beginning classes. For the research worker, the time 

 required for the setting up of such cultures is an important con- 

 sideration and a method adapted to more rapid work would allow 

 the use of more cultures and tlie accompanying greater accuracy 

 of results. 



