


rgor] CURRENT LITERATURE 443 
the later conditions may be for the development of a green sucker. The 
author suggests as an explanation that the sucker is in unbroken connection 
with an abundant food supply, and that there is not the stimulus of need for 
a later production of chromoplasts and chlorophyll, The contribution closes 
with an interesting discussion of parasitism and heredity from the stand- 
point of white suckers. Attention is called to the fact that in this case 
absolute parasitism in habit and structure is developed by the environment 
in a single generation from a long line of independent plants. It would 
seem to the author, therefore, that the influence of heredity is less powerful 
than the power of reaction to certain immediate stimuli, and he closes as 
follows: ‘May not this always be the case? May it not be that what we 
call heredity is really the response to similar stimuli and combinations of 
stimuli occurring in orderly succession in the course of nature?””—J. M. C 
BOTANICAL ARTICLES in annual reports of Agricultural Experiment 
Stations, not heretofore noticed in these pages, are as follows: Report of the 
New York station for 1900 contains reprints, with admirable plates, of 
bulletins 161, 162, 163, 164, 167, 169, and 170, all of much interest to students 
of plant diseases and of some other topics. Report of the Wisconsin station 
for 1900 contains a number of original articles. S, M. Babcock and H. L. 
Russell discuss the ‘‘ Causes operative in the production of silage,” and arrive 
at the conclusions that the presence of bacteria is unessential and even dele- 
terious, that the chief action is intramolecular respiration of the plant cells, 
producing carbon dioxid and organic acids in proportion to the length of 
time the cells remain alive and active, and that the aroma is due to the action 
of enzyms. These are unexpected and important results. The same authors 
describe with illustrations an excellent “Closed circuit respiration apparatus,” 
which would be most useful in a laboratory of physiology. E.S. Goff reports 
on “ Investigations of flower buds’’ and concludes that “in favorable seasons 
of flower formation, many of the buds formed that season, and nearly all 
those formed the preceding two seasons, that have not already flowered, will 
become flower-buds; an excessive apple crop results, which is necessarily 
followed by a light one, because the supply of reserve buds is exhausted.” 
The same writer treats of “The resumption of root growth in spring” and 
“The effects of continued use of immature seed ;” while F. Cranefield writes 
upon “Duration of the growth period in fruit trees.” In the 7th Report 
{1899) of the Wyoming station are excellent “ Alkali studies,” dealing with 
the germination and growth of seeds, by B. C. Buffum and E. E, Slosson, 
and in the roth Report (1900) Aven Nelson gives a list of “ The cryptogams 
of Wyoming,” including the algae, fungi, and mosses. Other botanical 
articles in these reports have previously been published as bulletins. The 
report of the botanists, George E. Stone and Ralph E. Smith, in the 11th 
Report of the Hatch (Mass.) station deals with a variety of fungal and 
