February 19, 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
151 
quantity of pieces of charcoal added, is a most suitable mixture 
in -which to pot it. It will thrive grandly in this. Now and 
until April the plants should be kept dry at the roots in a cool 
atmosphere, and about the beginning of April they should all be 
examined. We find root-bound plants when the drainage is all 
right succeed uncommonly well. The best of our plants have 
their pots filled with roots, and the leaves turn down around the 
pots so that the latter can hardly be seen. These plants will not 
be disturbed as long as they progress, as they have been doing 
lately. We wou'd rather have half a dozen large established 
plants than two dozen small ones. Indeed those who have only 
seen C. insigne in a G inch pot with a few straggling flowers can 
form no idea of its merits. 
Dividing, multiplying, and repotting the plants annually is 
not the best way to treat it; but small plants in a growing state 
may always be shifted, and these as well as the plants not 
shifted should be placed in a damp rather warm atmosphere 
about the beginning of April. Established plants must have 
abundance of moisture at the roots, but newly potted ones should 
only have it sparingly until growth begins. In May and until 
the end of September an unheated frame is the best position they 
can occupy. They cannot be too near the glass or have too 
much light, and they will be benefited by copious supplies of 
moisture at the roots. In the forepart of the summer the lights 
should be constantly on the frame, and so long as the plants are 
growing they may be kept rather close ; but throughout August 
and September abundance of air should be admitted on all fine 
days and mild nights. In this way the growth will be thoroughly 
matured, and it is then profuse blooming becomes a certainty. 
Nothing injures this Cypripedium more than keeping it in a 
close warm atmosphere at any time, more especially in summer, 
and the blooms when open remain much longer perfect in a cool 
dry atmosphere than in heat and moisture.— J. Muir. 
THE GERMINATION OF SEEDS. 
( Continued from page 110.) 
[A lecture delivered before the Institute of Agriculture, South Kensington, March 
81at, 1881, by Professor G. T. Bettany, M.A., B.Sc., F.L.S. Published by Messrs. 
Chapman & Hall.] 
The condition of the seed at the commencement of germination has 
now been reviewed, and the necessity for the addition of water and oxygen 
as outside ingredients has been mentioned. We will assume that a suitable 
temperature is attaiued. As to light, it is well known that germination 
will take place in the dark if water and oxygen be supplied. Thus, we 
can now inquire what happens within the seed, by means of which the 
root is put forth, the new leaves are sent up, and the store of food gets 
diminished. Very soon after the swelling of the seed the granules of 
nitrogenous albuminous matter may be seen to become more gelatinous 
and viscous, and gradually to give rise to a ground substance resembling 
in appearance the former protoplasm while the seed was ripening. The 
portions of substance which had a crystalline appearance dissolve. In 
particular, the nuclei of the cells return to their ordinary condition, and 
this is especially the case in the parts at the tip of the little root and at 
the growing point of the stem. This is very quickly attended with a 
swelling of the cells in these situations, and the rapid formation of new 
ones, by which the root tip is forced out of the seed-skin, and the increase 
in growth of the young stem and leaves begins. 
But inasmuch as the living protoplasm of these new cells is very 
largely composed of nitrogenous, albuminous material, it is evident that 
the quantity of this kind of material in the root and stem and young 
leaves must increase. It is proved experimentally that it does so increase, 
while in the large cotyledons of Beans and Peas, and in the embryo food 
of Maize, it diminishes as germination proceeds. Yet it is one of the 
fundamental properties of protoplasm in plants not to travel through cell- 
membranes from one region to another, even when they are so very thin 
as they are in young germinating plants. The different albuminous con¬ 
stituents of protoplasm do not travel by diffusion through cell-membranes. 
How, then, can we account for the presence in the growing parts of this 
increased amount of albuminous matter ? One obvious source is the 
albuminous matter in the resting parts of the seeds. But the transfer 
cannot take place without a distinct chemical change in the compounds. 
That which is not diffusible, and cannot travel through the cell- 
membranes, has to be so transformed that it can pass through them—can 
penetrate through the invisible pores between the molecules of the cell- 
membranes, and travel from place to place in the growing plant, the 
active parts, by the changes which take place in them, creating a de¬ 
mand for more material to continue the processes which are there in 
progress. 
Those who are familiar with animal physiology will realise that here 
is a problem very much akin to that of the dige.tion of food in the 
stomach. Albuminous matter taken in in a non-soluble form in meat, in 
eggs, in milk, in bread, has to be transformed into a soluble condition, in 
order that it may pass through animal membrane into the blood. And, 
just as in animals, the required chemical change is effected by the action 
of a ferment known as pepsin, so in seeds the digestion—for it is nothing 
less—of the stored-up food is effected by one or more kinds of ferment. A 
ferment, chemically speaking, is a body which in some way assists or [ 
presides over changes in other substances, without itself being used up 
proportionally to that change. It exists in very minute quantity, and 
there is no proof that it itself becomes changed in the process of transfor¬ 
mation. In many cases the change consists essentially in the addition of 
one or more molecules of water, but in others there may be a considerable 
splitting up of the albuminous matter. 
Numerous seeds when germinating contain ferments capable of trans¬ 
forming albuminoid substances into peptones, which are able to pass 
through cell-membranes. Plant pepsin, according to Gorup Besanez, has 
quite similar powers to animal pepsin. The ferment itself is very little, if 
at all, changed or used up. The presence of an acid is required, as in 
human digestion. 
There is a considerable amount of evidence that the most complex 
nitrogenous bodies during germination split up into two kinds of 
substances, one nitrogenous and the other non-nitrogenous, and that these 
nitrogenous bodies can travel to the spot where new growth is going on, 
and there be re-combined with non-nitrogenous matter to form complete 
protoplasm. A number of nitrogenous compounds, which can only be de¬ 
rived from the albuminous bodies, make their appearance during germin¬ 
ation, and contain considerably less carbon and oxygen than they do. 
One of the most studied of these is asparagin, which derives its name from 
common Asparagus, in which it was first discovered. It is abundantly 
developed in many leguminous seeds during germination, although when 
ripe, and before the commencement of germination, it is not present in 
them. It has been found also in Barley and Maize, and some think it is 
invariably formed during the progress of germinat on. It is most highly 
diffusible, and it appears very possible that by combination with sugar 
derived from starch this body could be the means of regenerating 
protoplasm, and furnishing it to the growing parts. 
I here recur to the fact that oxygen is essential to germination, and 
proceed to comment on the corresponding facts that carbonic acid and 
water are very considerably formed and given off by germinating seeds. 
This is the true respiration of plants, as of animals, and is most con¬ 
spicuous in the germinating state of plants, because it is then that the 
most active changes go on in a small hulk ; every part of the embryo 
plant is leading an active life at the same instant. Thus, when twenty- 
four grains of Wheat, weighing in the dry state 1 gramme, were placed, 
after soaking, in a closed glass vessel, after seventeen hours they began to 
germinate, and at the end of twenty-one hours the air in the vessel 
contained 2i cubic centimetres of carbonic acid, and had lost that amount 
of oxygen. "When three soaked Beans, whose dry weight was 1 gramme, 
were left in a closed vessel for forty-eight hours, during which time they 
put forth roots one-fifth to two-fifths of an inch long, the contained air 
included nine cubic centimetres of carbonic acid, and had lost an equal 
amount of oxygen. 
These facts are most significant when their meaning as to weight is 
considered. For every thirty-two parts of oxygen absorbed forty-four 
parts by weight of carbonic acid are evolved. The gas given out has 
increased in weight more than one-third. We can thus see why the dry 
weight of germinating seeds, independently of the water they take up, 
decreases considerably until they have begun to absorb carbon for them¬ 
selves by means of green leaves from the air. Thus, forty-six Wheat 
grains, weighing when dry If gramme and germinated in the dark for 
seven weeks lost nearly one gramme of dry weight, nearly half the loss 
being carbon, another half oxygen, while the nitrogen and the mineral ash 
remained stationary, showing how tenaciously the young plant keeps its 
nitrogen and its ash. 
(To be continued.) 
NATIONAL CHRYSANTHEMUM SOCIETY. 
A General Committee meeting of this Society was held at the Old Four 
Swans, Bishopsgate Street Within, E.C., on Monday, the 16th inst., at 
7 p.m., under the presidency of E. Sanderson, Esq., and a large number of 
the members were present. 
It was announced by the Secretary, Mr. William Holmes, that Mr. Crute 
had offered the sum of £10 for Chrysanthemums grown in his patent pots, 
which offer was unanimously accepted. It was further resolved that the 
Veitch Memorial with £5, for specimens of superior cultivation by bona 
fide amateurs or gentlemen’s gardeners, be awarded as the first prize to a 
new class for thirty-six incurved blooms in not less than eighteen varieties 
or more than two blooms of any one varietv, the Society adding a second 
and third prize of the respective values of 40s. and 20s. 
During the ensuing year the Floral Committee, which has hitherto held 
its meetings at the Old Four Swans, will sit in the Organ Gallery of the 
Royal Aquarium, Westminster, for the purpose of judging the merits of 
new or rare Chrysanthemums submitted for certificates by growers. 
These meetings will be held at half-past two o’clock on Wednesday, the 
14th and 28th October ; on the first day of the Society’s Exhibition—viz., 
11th November; on Wednesday, the 25th November; and the last on 
Wednesday, the 9th December. There is but little doubt that the Society 
has made a step in the right direction in holding these Floral Committee 
meetings in daylight instead of in the evening, as was previously the case. 
The General Committee meetings of the Society, which under Rule 3 
were formerly held on the first Thursdays in February, March, September, 
and November, have also been changed. Dunns: the year 1885 and after¬ 
wards they will be held on the first Mondays in February, September, and 
October, but other meetings will also be called by the Secretary should the 
business of the Society necessitate it. Some alteration as to the delivery 
and removal of exhibits for the Show was made in Regulation 5, to which 
we refer our readers when the schedule is issued. 
It was resolved that the Exhibition of late-blooming Chrysanthemums 
be held on Wednesday, the 13th January, 1886 ; that this Exhibition shou’d 
be open to all members, but that an entrance fee of 5s. be charged to a 1 
