PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



ialmc^clak Batumi giritarg (^kk 



Evening Meeting, Jan. lO, 1879. Dr. Bossey read a paper on the 

 subject of the " Relations Subsisting between "Water and Growing Plants," 

 as follows : — ■ 



These relationships are highly important in a social or economic point of 

 Tiew, as they are intimately connected with the cultivation of our garden 

 and cereal crops, the drainage of land, the purification of our rivers, and the 

 right appropriation of the sewage of our towns ; but it is only as a question 

 of science or natural history that I can deal with this subject this evening, 

 and in this aspect it is sufficiently interesting to command our attention, 

 since every plant, from the first germination of its seed to its final decay, 

 and every physical, chemical, or vital process going on iu every plant, is more 

 or less connected with its relationships to water. The germination of seeds 

 is wholly dependent on it, for so long as a seed remains dry it undergoes 

 no change, even if buried in the earth ; but if the soil be moistened the 

 seed swells, its tissues soften from water taken into its substance, part of 

 the water is decomposed, its oxygen uniting with the carbon in the seed to 

 form carbonic acid, which escapes into the soil and the air, and part of it 

 is combined with the starch present in the seed and converts it into sugar, 

 a change which consists wholly in the addition of water — 



Starch containing 12 parts of carbon and 10 of water. 

 Cane Sugar containing 12 parts of carbon and 11 of water. 

 Grape Sugar containing 12 parts of carbon and 14 of water. 



The same change takes place in the ripening of dates, apples, and pears. 

 In the unripe state these fruits contain starch, and the process of ripening 

 consists in the conversion of this starch into sugar by its gradual union 

 with water, so that the sweetness of the fruit when ripe is proportioned to 

 the quantity of starch in it in the unripe state. After having thus aided the 

 germination of seeds, water is still an essential constituent of growing 

 plants. In these it takes up from the earth and conveys into the plant 

 such matters as are required for its support ; it keeps up in the sap that 

 degree of fluidity which is needful for its circulation ; and it maintains in 

 the tissues that moist condition which enables them to imbibe and transmit 

 the fluids with which they are in contact, as well as to eflcect certain 



