X PREFACE TO THE FIFTH RUSSIAN EDITION 



germination of the seeds, further to continue with the most 

 characteristic leading features of the vegetative period of the 

 plant's life, and finally to terminate with the processes con- 

 nected with reproduction and maturation of seeds, I have 

 attempted to reproduce for the student as clearly as possible a 

 complete picture of the life of the plant, not as a sum of separate 

 physiological functions, but as a unified developing process 

 beginning with the germination of seeds and terminating with 

 the maturing of seeds newly reproduced by the plant. The 

 normal process of the development of plants determines likewise 

 the usual cycle of agricultural operations from the preparation 

 for sowing up to the harvest. This arrangement of the subject 

 matter should therefore contribute to a closer coordination of the 

 course in plant physiology with agricultural practice. 



The new arrangement of the material, as well as the recent 

 advance in different problems of physiology and other related 

 sciences, required considerable rewriting of the text and a 

 certain increase in volume, especially because the last two 

 editions were issued almost without changes after the edition of 

 1929. For the present edition, most of the chapters have been 

 rewritten, and the rest have been reexamined and supplemented. 

 Thus the fifth edition represents as compared with the four 

 preceding ones an entirely new book. 



It is to be hoped that this new book will be accepted both 

 by students and by teachers with the same cordiality as the pre- 

 ceding editions. 



The first four Russian editions of my textbook were out of print 

 within eight years. During this period, there were issued three 

 editions of a Ukrainian translation, under the editorship of the 

 Academician N. G. Cholodny, a translation into White Russian, 

 and a translation into Georgian. 



An English translation of the second edition of the textbook, 

 issued in New York under the editorship of Professors R. B. 

 Harvey and A. E. Murneek, has been widely adopted in American 

 universities and colleges. All this proves that my book was not 

 one too many among textbooks on plant physiology and that it 

 met well the needs of higher institutions by offering a brief 

 exposition of the fundamental facts and principles of our science. 



Saratov, N. A. MaximoV. 



September, 1935. 



