57 



PHYSIOLOGY OF GERMINATION. 



(Dr. Chas. F. Hottes.) 



MR. PRESIDENT AND FRIENDS: Agronomists, botanists and geneticists have 

 by no means been inactive. They have used the same fundamental 

 bases for their studies that you today have considered, and yet the 

 results of approximately sixty years of their labor gives to us little 

 upon which we can build. The reason for this is apparent, especial- 

 ly after the brief discussion that I shall be able to give to you this 

 afternoon. In the first place, instead of setting as the goal the 

 corn plant, they have worked and thought only of the individual fields 

 of agronomy, botany and genetics. We have a common interest, and having 

 a common interest we must work together. We must work shoulder to 

 shoulder to achieve a common end. The materials that we have are simply 



crude blocks with which to build. As yet we 

 cannot construct the structure, for the simple 

 reason that we have not the fundamental plan 

 that shall guide us in its construction. Many of 

 the blocks are missing; many of the blocks 

 have never been constructed, and it should be 

 our duty to work together now with the hope 

 and the endeavor of achieving results that are 

 definitely correlated and usable. 



The plant is a most effective machine. It 

 does that which Mr. Mann has repeatedly 

 referred to today it abstracts from the atmo- 

 sphere the gases, it abstracts from the soil the 

 water and the mineral nutriments and mate- 

 rials that are absolutely different from those 

 that course through its own body, or those 

 that course through our bodies, which are after 

 all, the same as those that course through the 

 plant bodies. They are entirely different, as I 

 say, and yet their origin is from nature itself, 

 from physical nature. It is the green plant, 

 and the green plant only, that is capable of 

 utilizing the materials of air and of soil and by 

 means of the energy of the sun convert these 

 materials into those organic compounds that 

 you and I consume as food, and that every plant 

 consumes as food. 



In our construction of the plant we must 

 consider it from two points of view. These have oftentimes in fact, too 

 often been considered from separate points of view and kept apart. 

 We must consider them as united, simply as two different parts of the same 

 plant, working in perfect co-ordination and working towards a common end. 

 The life cycle of a plant presents to us two widely different, though 

 definitely correlated phases; namely, nutrition and reproduction. The former 

 largely deals with the vegetative processes food production, and has as its 

 chief purpose the maintenance of the individual. The latter deals with the 

 reproductive processes seed production, and has as its chief purpose the 

 perpetuation of the race through generation. In our seed studies we have 

 too long considered nutrition and reproduction as separate subjects, and the 

 voluminous and important literature in these respective fields has failed to 

 furnish us with the information we most need. The investigations have 

 proceeded without unity of purpose, and, consequently, lack co-ordination 

 and usefulness in application. We have had the stones for an imposing 

 structure cut and delivered, but they have come from many sources and 

 the artisans that cut them have been unmindful of the details of the 

 structure as a whole or of the interdependence of its parts. 



GERMINATION TEST NOT SUFFICIENT. 



We should no longer feel content with a simple viability test. Percent 

 of germination is not necessarily a measure of fitness of the seed for field 



Dr. Chas. F. Hottes. 



