2 



What work is recorded in these few pages has been done 

 with the greatest care but in some few cases, as indicated in 

 the text, there was not time to perform a sufficiently large 

 number of experiments to warrant the forming of conclusions. 

 In those cases where sufficient data was secured conclusions 

 are drawn and though they agree or disagree with the conclu- 

 sions of others working along the same lines, I am confident 

 of my facts and figures here given warranting such deductions. 



In the Botanical Gazette (1896) there is an article on 

 "The Toxic Action of Dissolved Salts" by Kahlenberg and True, 

 which shows that some salts including weak *TaCl solutions, give 

 an acceleration while certain other solutions give a retarda- 

 tion. It is also stated that the per cent of seeds germinating 

 is decreased by the stronger solutions. The results of my ex- 

 periments, where solutions of sodium chloride and also of am- 

 monium alum were used, are given in this paper. 



The brief comment, on the vitality of the spores of 

 Marsilia quadrifolia, by Barnes, in the Botanical Gazette (189j) 

 page 229, suggested the experiments on the effect of soaking 

 seeds in various grades of alcohol; i.e. the effect on the 

 rate and amount of increase in weight, and the effect on time 

 and per cent of germination. 



