80 THE VITALITY AND GERMINATION OF SEEDS. 



Giglioli rt arrived at practically the same conclusions when he said: 



It is a common notion that life, or capacity for life, is always connected with con- 

 tinuous chemical and physical change * * * The very existence of living matter is 

 supposed to imply change. There is now reason for believing that living matter 

 may exist, in a completely passive state, without any chemical change whatever, 

 and may therefore maintain its special properties for an indefinite time, as is the 

 case with mineral and all lifeless matter. Chemical change in living matter means 

 active life, the w r ear and tear of which necessarily leads to death. Latent life, when 

 completely passive in a chemical sense, ought to be life without death. 



But even though ordinary respiratory exchanges are not necessary 

 for the maintenance of vitality, and granting that intramolecular 

 respiration does not occur in the resting protoplasts, there is no exper- 

 imental evidence pointing to the fact that all chemical action ceases, 

 although some writers, as has already been shown, maintain the view 

 that living matter may exist in a completely passive state. If ' c com- 

 pletely passive" meant devoid of respiratory activities none would dare 

 dissent; but that seeds are entirely quiescent under any known con- 

 ditions has not been proved. To conceive of all activity ceasing 

 within the seed under certain conditions, and that with such cessation 

 of activity an immortality of the seed is possible, i. e., if such con- 

 ditions continue to exist, is, from our present knowledge of the chem- 

 istry and behavior of the living cell, impossible. In Giglioli's experi- 

 ments respiration was undoubtedly prevented, and, according to his 

 own conclusions, vitality should have been preserved, for he says u in 

 the absence of any chemical change the special properties may be main- 

 tained indefinitely." But, in his own experiments, the special prop- 

 erties were not maintained, for all of the seeds with which he experi- 

 mented deteriorated very much, and many died. Granting that those 

 which suffered the greatest loss in vitality were injured by the pres- 

 ence of the particular gas or liquid used there remain no means of 

 accounting for the deterioration in those giving the highest percentages 

 of germination. His experiments were made for the most part with 

 Medicago sativa, which, under ordinary conditions of storage, is espe- 

 cially long lived. Samek b has shown that seed of Medicago sativa 11 

 years old was capable of germinating 54 per cent. Giglioli succeeded 

 in getting a germination of only 56.56 per cent after a little more than 

 16 years in Irydrogen, and 84.20 per cent when they had been kept in 

 carbon monoxid. Jodin c kept peas immersed in mercury for 4 years 

 and they germinated 80 per cent. After 10 years the vitality had 

 fallen to 44 per cent. Nobbe obtained a germination of 33 per cent 

 in peas 10 years old which had been stored under normal conditions. 

 Likewise the experiments of Brown and Escombe do not justify the 



Nature, 52: 544-545, 1895. 

 & Tirol, landw. Blatter, 13: 161-162, 1894. 

 . Agron., 23: 433-471, 1897. 



