EDITOR'S NOTE 



There is no student of plant respiration better qualified to 

 write on this subject than the Russian physiologist, Kostychev. 

 Trained in part by Palladin and long an active worker in the 

 field of chemical problems associated with fermentation and 

 respiration, he is in a position to present a balanced, authorita- 

 tive discussion of all phases of the subject in which Russian 

 workers have long been interested. It was with this in mind 

 that an English edition of his monograph in German was 

 undertaken. 



Although there are many English-speaking physiologists 

 who would easily read this work in German they are far out- 

 numbered by the less experienced students and biologists in 

 general. These readers would be compelled to spend hours to 

 obtain the same information as could be grasped in minutes 

 from an English text. In many cases they would feel it neces- 

 sary to use a less dependable source in their own language. 



In order to preserve the spirit and the fine distinctions in 

 the author's statements, the general attempt has been made to 

 present a close translation of the German text. Many sen- 

 tences have been shortened and minor changes made in phrases 

 which would otherwise be awkward but no extensive alterations 

 or additions have been made except those given as editorial 

 notes or in brackets. The greater part of these notes involve 

 experimental results reported after the preparation of the Ger- 

 man edition. 



Kostychev's treatment of the methods of measuring normal 

 respiration may be found more or less unsatisfactory by many 

 readers. Only a few methods are described fully and it has 

 seemed best to add but brief references to other and newer 

 methods at the end of that section. There are so many methods 

 which are or have been used that the consideration of them all 

 would require a book of itself. Figure lo, showing Osterhout's 



vu 



