186 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Under conditions as above the seeds may commence to 

 germinate and it is also impossible to be certain whether 

 or not the apparent injurious influence of prolonged 

 soaking in water is not merely due to the development of 

 Bacteria and the putrefactive changes thereby induced. 

 To eliminate these factors the following precautions were 

 taken. 



The dry seeds are well washed with a watery solution 

 of mercuric chloride and then with boiled sterilized water, 

 in a tube of which they are finally left. The tube is 

 completely filled with water and the mouth is hermetically 

 sealed with a plug of cotton wool soaked in melted 

 paraffin or wax. With Peas, Haricots and Barley, owing 

 to the absence of all oxygen from the surrounding water 

 no germination whatever takes place, but with Hemp, 

 probably owing to the fact that the seeds themselves may 

 contain a little air, i.e., oxygen, in a good many cases the 

 seed coat splits, and the radicle protrudes and may 

 elongate a millimetre or two. 



The mode of sterilization adopted is not always success- 

 ful but is the only one practicable without damaging the 

 seeds and with sufficient care and accuracy of manipulation 

 gives quite good results. During the experiments the 

 seeds are exposed to a temperature varying from 

 4 — 10 Q C. The results obtained are shown in Table B. 



Table B. 

 Seeds in sterilized oxygenless water for : 





1 week. 



2 weeks. 



3 weeks. 



4 weeks. 



14 weeks. 



Peas - - 



75 p.c. 



12 p.c. 



3 p.c. 



None. 





Haricots - 



12 p.c. 



Few seeds cotyledons 

 living. None ger- 

 minate. 



None. 







