Reproduction of Vegetal Cells. 241 



that anybody else would draw ; that the germs that were sucked into the 

 23 flasks were in the dust of the hay loft. Everybody is familiar with 

 that dust. And everybody supposes the hay furnishes the dust. We 

 ought to have been told where the hay was grown. Hay will grow 

 much above 7,000 feet elevation. Suppose it to have grown in the 

 neighborhood of the loft, let us ask how the germs got into the hay. 

 Would the wind, in that supposed pure elevation, have brought germs 

 by the ten millions and deposited them on the hay and nowhere else? 

 If the currents of air up there are practically free from germs, the sup- 

 position is ridiculous on its face. I venture to assert that there is not a 

 hay loft in the world in which the same experiment would not have re- 

 sulted in the same way. The laboratory of the Royal Institution in 

 London appears to be a dusty place. "Of a number of flasks opened 

 there in 1876, 42 per cent, were smitten while 58 per cent, escaped. 

 In 1877 the proportion, in the same laboratory, was 68 per cent, smitten 

 to 32 intact. The greater mortality, so to speak, of the infusions in 

 1877 was due to the presence of hay, which diffused its germinal dust 

 in the laboratory air, causing it to approximate, as regards infective vir- 

 ulence, to the air of the Alpine loft. " The inference I draw from these 

 facts is that the germs originate with the hay that is, a certain sort of 

 germs. Another sort originate with the grape, and another with fruits of 

 different kinds. They may, under favorable circumstances, be carried 

 about in the air just as the fertilizing pollen of plants is carried about 

 in summer. If we should plant a female persimmon tree, miles away 

 from a male, we would not expect the air to furnish those ' 'unknown 

 things " necessary to start the young persimmons, but if the two trees 

 are near each other " the air " will furnish the " unknown things " with- 

 out fail. When the brewer boils his wort he kills all the germs that 

 may have clung to the original barley, and so is obliged to freshly sow 

 it. The wine maker and the kirsch maker are not under this 

 necessity since they do not destroy the germs adhering to their fruits. 



Schiitzenberger, too, observes that other organisms besides the cells of 

 Saccharomyces can excite alcoholic fermentation of sugar; for example, 

 the " elementary cells of larger plants such as are found in fruits, 

 leaves," etc. " The elementary organs of plants in general are endowed, 

 though in a less degree than the cells of yeast, with the property of ex- 

 citing alcoholic fermentation. " M. Fremy has examined the parenchyma 

 of fruits before and after their fermentation and has * ' found -an innu- 

 merable quantity of corpuscles which have all the appearance of organic 

 ferments." Schiitzenberger thinks such fermentation due to a second 

 set of cells, begotten in some way alongside the living fruit cells. Pas-. 

 teur's opinion, quoted elsewhere, is that the cells of the living fruit them- 

 selves are competent to set up alcoholic fermentation, but in addition to 



