1921] SHERMAN—DORMANT SEEDS 15 
are five quotients grouped discontinuously. The irregularity and 
discontinuity of grouping lay the extreme values open to question 
rom the mathematician’s point of view. In this instance experi- 
mental evidence supports the mathematician’s feeling that certain 
unusual factors must be working to produce the higher values, 
inasmuch as these were obtained in experiments on seeds of the 
1919 crop, tested within two days after their collection. The seeds 
were not entirely freed from chaff and adherent scales, and in 
each set mold developed freely during the experiment. The high 
values obtained, therefore, represent the joint respiratory activity 
of seeds and mold. These values have been allowed to stand in 
the histogram to illustrate the value of such treatment of data as 
a test of its uniformity, but they are not used in calculating the 
average for the type quotient in table IV. 
In fig. 4 the values for the respiratory quotients of the Rosaceae 
are plotted in a percentage curve, the abscissas representing the 
value of the quotients, and the ordinates representing the per- 
centage of the total number of experiments on each seed, in which 
each value occurred. The maximum percentage of the experi- 
ments with the six rosaceous seeds, apricot, peach, cherry, sand 
cherry, blue gage plum, and hawthorn, gives respiratory quotients 
lying between 0. 60 and 0.90, the extreme range of the means for the 
different seeds (table IV) being twenty-three classes, 0.648-0.876. 
Within this range the maxima fall into three groups: those of 
cherry and sand cherry, between 0.80 and 0.90; those of peach, 
apricot, and blue gage plum, between 0.60 and 0.70; while that of 
hawthorn lies intermediate between these values (0.70-0.80). 
Thus the maximum for hawthorn falls very close to 0.756, the 
"mean of the quotients (table IV) for these six seeds; and with the 
exception of a single value for apricot all the quotients for these 
rosaceous seeds lie within the range of the quotients of hawthorn. 
Discussion 
Increase in catalase activity during after-ripening of seeds and 
during germination has been reported by numerous workers. 
EcKERSON (19), by microchemical methods, found an increase in 
the activity of catalase during the after-ripening of Crataegus, and 
