THE TOMATO 171 



lined entirely to the store of nutrient substance 

 in which the germinating nuclei of the future 

 plant are embedded, or whether it included any 

 portion of the germinating structure itself. 



The fact that failure to continue growth — in 

 the case of the seeds that put forth cotyledons 

 and then died— was due to a lack of the central 

 bud that usually puts forth between the cotyle- 

 dons, suggests that the germinal substance itself 

 was impaired. Of course this germinal matter 

 is of tangible, even if very minute, size, and there 

 is no apparent reason why it might not be im- 

 paired as to a portion of its substance. 



Conceivably, the substance of the complex 

 molecules making up the germinal protoplasm 

 may undergo a gradual process of decay or dis- 

 integration through the throwing out of some of 

 their atoms, somewhat as radium and its allied 

 substances are disintegrated. This of course is 

 a pure assumption, yet it is not altogether with- 

 out plausibility. 



But whatever the precise manner in which the 

 degeneration of the germinal plasm is brought 

 about, the suggestion that one portion of its 

 structure may be affected more than another 

 raises a question as to whether, conceivably, such 

 a deterioration of the germ plasm within a seed, 

 in an exceptional instance where a seed is stored 



