502 rROCEEinNGs of the third entomological meeting 



in 48 hours. The dishes, when in use are piled one on top of the other, 

 so as to act as lids. On the top of a stack comes an empty dish. 



After each germination the felt discs are washed in copper sulphate 

 solution (1 : 1000). 



Before using this method we used to employ Petri dishes and blotting 

 paper, each dish taking at the most 100 seeds. The dishes were in 

 those days placed in an ordinary Hearson's incubator. It was of course 

 not possible to work on a large scale in this way, especially as rotting 

 of samples used to be very frequent. We have not had a single rotted 

 sample since using our newer method, and have germinated without 

 difficulty over two milhon three hundred thousand seeds. 



After germination is complete, the seeds are sorted and counted. 

 Forty-eight hours under the conditions described produces rootlets 

 of three and more centimetres in length greatly faciUtating discrimina- 

 tion. The non-germinated, seed is previous to counting resorted into 

 whole and attacked seed. For the purposes of the tests the attacked 

 seed is not recorded for germination ; its numbers are however recorded 

 for the purpose of estimating extent of attack. 



Samples of 500 seeds give a probable error of about 2 per cent, for 

 germination. The average germination of sound Upper Egypt seed is 

 near 90 per cent., Lower Egypt seed near 82 per cent. It is suspected 

 that the non-viable seeds have very probably lost their vitality owing 

 to puncture by Oxycaremis. 



The following statistics relating to the first three months' working 

 of the law may be of interest. 



There are 24 factories working under the law, each one of which 

 was inspected before ginning commenced in order to verify the existence 

 and proper fitting of the machinery. 



Our inspector, sub-inspector and moawens [assistants] have made 

 310 visits and taken 1,063 samples and ginners have forwarded 3,650 

 samples and these 4,713 samples have been examined for worms or 

 germinated. In these 239 samples were foimd to contain Hving worms ; 

 18,273 larvae were found of which 17,734 dead, or 97 per cent, mortahty ; 

 and 37 samples were found to have been burnt. 2,313,834 seeds have 

 been germinated of which 281,257 failed, giving 88 per cent, germina- 

 tion. 



Considering that this is the first year that the majority of 

 the factories have worked the seed-treating machines, this is a very 

 creditable result for them. 



It may be mentioned here that the percentage of germination fluctu- 

 ates from district to district, but appears to be very constant within each 



