forms of plants. The work has been begun with the "Marquis" 

 variety of spring wheat, and an attempt will be made to advance 

 our knowldege of the salt requirements of this plant as rapidly 

 as possible. As a second plant, soy bean is to be employed, and 

 work upon it may be begun immediately if workers prefer to 

 deal with this plant rather than with wheat. In the beginning 

 the cooperation is to be limited to these two plants. Other plants 

 may be taken up when plans and methods have been perfected 

 and when the work may be well enough in hand so that the co- 

 operators may afford to leave the two plants just mentioned. 

 All of the wheat and soy bean seed used will be supplied by this 

 committee, so that all experimenters may be considered as deal- 

 ing with the same complexes of internal conditions as these are 

 presented in the resting seed. Arrangements have been made 

 by which the salts employed by all cooperators may also be of 

 the same lots. The standardized methods to be employed in the 

 beginning, as outlined below, are based on those of Schreiner 

 and Skinner, Tottingham, Shive, McCall, and Hibbard. For some 

 references to the literature in this connection, see the list of 

 citations following this preface. 



Cooperators are asked to furnish the special committee with 

 data, as the work progresses, and generally to keep the committee 

 in touch with their work. It is of course understood that the 

 committee will give proper publicity to the work, with due credit 

 to all cooperators. 



It is estimated that the materials and apparatus required by 

 one worker for a year will not cost more than $300.00, supposing 

 that some greenhouse space is available for winter work. Much 

 of the needed apparatus is generally at hand in laboratories 

 where studies in plant physiology are carried on. 



Those who receive copies of this Plan are urged to look over 

 the outline of the project, and let the chairman of the committee 

 have their decisions at an early date, as to what they may be able 

 to do in this cooperation.* It is desirable to have as large a 

 representation as possible and it is hoped that many workers may 

 feel that this is their project, and that they will do all they can 

 to further it. The work falls readily into numerous sections of 

 different magnitudes, so that a cooperator may devote only a 

 small portion of his time to it and still obtain valuable results 

 toward the general solution of the problem. For example, if a 



* Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. B. E. Livingston, Labora- 

 tory of Plant Physiology, The Johns Hopkins Unli><^^^rsi!ty,(^aMij®3C<leLjVId. 



lI^boratory por soil investigations, 



^UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, 

 COLLEGE PARK, MD. 



