SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 
I ! 
disappear, we have to look for an agent which shall be found invariably to produce 
that effect. 
It has been shown that a small quantity of gluten is capable to convert a large 
quantity of starch into sugar. " The gluten of barley is an important agent in 
the change which that grain suffers during conversion into malt, and the action of 
ground malt upon viscid starch is analogous to that of gluten." 
But sugar contains only about forty -two parts per cent, of carbon ; and as sugar 
and mucilage are formed by the decomposition of gluten during germination, — 
thirteen per cent, of carbon having disappeared, — it is reasonable to conclude 
that the gluten is the constituent to which seeds owe their excess of carbon. 
When barley, after being steeped forty hours in cold water, is thrown out of 
the cistern upon the floor, it is formed into a heap or couch sixteen inches deep ; 
it thus remains more than twenty-four hours, and is turned and spread abroad thinner 
several times. The wetted mass acquires a few degrees of heat, because water is 
decomposed ; and a volume of disturbing electricity is liberated, which acts upon all 
the elements according to their individual capacities : attractions are excited, carbon 
disappears, roots gradually develop and elongate with great rapidity ; and in a 
few hours more, the acrospire, or plumule, issues from the opposite end of the 
grain. 
Malting, as an electro-chemical phenomenon, is now complete, and the results, 
according to Dr. Thomson, are— 
Gluten 1 compared with raw barley— loss 2 
Sugar 16 „ excess 12 
Gum .14 „ idem 9 
Starch 69 „ loss 19 
100 
Thus, every condition is fulfilled ; vegetation is established, and carbon is 
removed — partly, perhaps, in the form of carbonic acid, but chiefly during the 
development of roots, of the ligneous fibre of which it becomes the basic element. 
We have stated that gluten contains nearly fifty-six per cent, of carbon. In 
sugar and gum the proportion is about forty-two per cent., and the highest estimate 
in starch little exceeds forty- four per cent. The excess of carbon must, therefore, 
be ascribed to the presence of gluten ; but the disturbing power is to be sought in 
the agency of water. 
In the cistern and couch, the progress and developments of malting become 
manifest : in the ground they are hidden, but analogy interprets the phenomena ; 
and we may safely ascribe the germination of a seed, first, to the enormous volume 
of electricity which is liberated during the decomposition of a single grain of water 
(see Faraday's New Researches) ; and secondly, to the play of chemical affinities, 
by which organic components of a ripe seed are thus disturbed, and enter into new 
vital combinations, according to the constitution of each individual. 
