L LIBRARY 3 



PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION 



When Dr. R. B. Harvey was my guest in Leningrad in 1927 I 

 showed him my "Textbook of Plant Physiology" which had just 

 been printed. He was interested in the book and asked me 

 whether I did not expect to prepare an English translation of it. 

 I answered that I had not been thinking about this, but when 

 another of my guests from America, Dr. William Seifriz, also 

 advised me to issue this textbook in the United States, I deter- 

 mined to follow this advice. 



The translation of the book was done at my request by the 

 following: Miss Alma Trost (Chaps. I, IV-VII, IX, and X), Mrs. 

 Isabella Gerbatch (Chaps. II, XI, and XII), Mrs. Irene Krassovsky 

 (Chap. Ill), all of Leningrad, and Dr. Michael Shapovalov (Chap. 

 VIII), of Riverside, Calif. To my great satisfaction my friend, 

 Dr. A. E. Murneek, who is well acquainted with the Russian lan- 

 guage, consented to edit the translation. His task has not been 

 an easy one, for though the translators had made an exact copy 

 of the Russian into English, nevertheless the editor had to revise 

 the translation thoroughly in order to coordinate the expressions 

 of the different translators and to minimize as much as possible 

 the influence of the Russian on the English style. Dr. Murneek 

 has carried out this work with love and perseverance. Almost 

 the whole text had to be worked over and partly rewritten and, 

 as far as I can judge, the book has quite lost the character of a 

 translation. 



When the English manuscript was almost ready for publica- 

 tion the first Russian edition was out of print and it was necessary 

 to prepare a second. This edition contains several alterations and 

 changes which are included in the English text. Dr. R. B. Harvey 

 has edited these supplements and has critically reedited the whole 

 text. Thus the English translation was edited by two authorita- 

 tive American workers in plant physiology. This gives me the 

 certainty that, thanks to their efforts, the book, though written in 

 Russian, has been successfully transformed into an English text. 



I express my sincere appreciation to all the persons mentioned 



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