396 THE FUTURE OF ARID LANDS 
plants contain different mechanisms which regulate germination 
by means of inhibition. Under natural conditions this results in 
inhibited germination which either fractionates germination over 
many years or limits it to coincide with the infrequent suitable 
conditions for the species. These are modifications of survival 
value for the species insuring it against extinction in a year in 
which incipient good germination conditions are followed by a 
period of drought. But in agricultural practice we must attain just 
the opposite, i.e., very rapid, simultaneous germination at the time 
of sowing. As the time of sowing has to be chosen very carefully— 
and the question of when to sow is one of the main problems 
confronting desert agriculture—one has to be absolutely sure that 
germination is rapid and uniform. This can be achieved only when 
the germination of a given seed has been carefully studied, its 
germination mechanisms explored, and its requirements for ex- 
ternal germination conditions are known. 
The establishment of a germination laboratory in connection 
with each local project for desert agricultural research is not 
enough. There must be a central international organization where 
all the information obtained about germination of desert seeds in 
different regions of the world is collected and correlated. The 
reasons for this suggestion are obvious. The local germination 
laboratories must serve a practical need and, as pointed out 
before, should not get lost in the purely scientific research prob- 
lems involved. On the other hand, usually, only part of the work 
done there on different seeds is published in scientific journals. 
This information should also be fed into a central collecting 
agency and stored there where it can be available to everybody. 
The propagation of species suitable for desert agriculture is 
concerned not only with reseeding but also with vegetative 
propagation. 
When the vegetative propagation of the important pasture 
plants Hordeum bulbosum and Phalaris bulbosa by transplanting 
of bulbs was tried, it was found that bulbs removed from the soil 
at the end of the growing season lose their viability completely 
after four to seven days. This makes their storage impossible. An 
investigation was undertaken, therefore, to find out if there are 
