MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
65 
toes tested in plots where the seed-tubers had been purchased, probably 
overlooking the difference in yield of the hills from which the seed- 
tubers had been grown—a very common error. 
“The Cereals in America,” a recent book by Prof. Thomas F. Hunt, 
of Cornell, is usually accurate, at least so far as the botany is concerned. 
He made free use of “The True Grasses,” by E. Hackell, who is an ex¬ 
pert on grasses. Prof. Hunt says: “When a grain of wheat germinates, 
it throws out a whorl of three seminal or temporary roots.” He shows 
a microphotograph of a cross section of a grain of wheat through the 
embryo, showing tips of three rootlets before germination. Had this 
section been made obliquely across the lower end of a kernel of wheat, 
he would have found five roots instead of three, not in a whorl, but 
standing nearly in one plane. The center root is largest, appearing first 
in germination; next appears one on each side; and later another on 
each side, making live. 
Speaking of the inflorescence of oats, he says: “A typical panicle 
is nine to twelve inches long, containing from three to five whorls of 
branches.” Instead of whorls he should have said “half-whorls.” 
“How Crops Feed,” by Prof. Samuel W. Johnson, of Yale University, 
deals mostly with chemistry and physics. In the paragraphs headed 
“Decay of Vegetation,” the author says: “When a plant or any part of 
a plant dies and remains exposed to air and mosture at the common 
temperatures, it undergoes a series of chemical and physical changes, 
which are largely due to an oxidation of portions of its carbon and 
hydrogen, and the formation of new organic compounds.” Eremacausis 
is the old word used to express these changes—a slow chemical com¬ 
bustion in the decay of wood. In the process of decay, the important 
part played by bacteria and saprophytic fungi is not even mentioned. 
Watt’s Dictionary of Chemistry has made a change in the meaning 
of this word and defines Eremacausis or Decay as “A slow combustion 
taking place in presence of air and water, and accompanied by a kind 
of fermentation.” 
“How Crops Grow,” by Prof. Samuel W. Johnson of Yale University, 
lias had a great run. About two-fifths of the pages are devoted to the 
life of the plant and may safely be placed under the term botany, be¬ 
sides much of the other three-fifths contains a good deal of plant 
physiology. The date on the title page reads 1902. 
On page 41, read “Every agricultural plant is an aggregate of micro¬ 
scopic cells, i. e., is made up of minute sacks or closed tubes, adhering 
to each other. Although the highest magnifying power that can be 
brought to bear upon the mebranes of the vegetable cell fails to reveal 
any apertures in them,—they being, so far as the best assisted vision is 
concerned, completely continuous and imperforate—they are neverthe¬ 
less readily permeable to liquids.” 
Contrast the above with a statement of Sachs in 1880: “Every plant, 
however highly organized, is fundamentally a protoplasmic body form¬ 
ing a connected whole,” and Sachs was right. In other words, all the 
protoplasm in a plant is connected by innumerable pits or holes in all 
the cell walls. 
On page 49, “In potato starch the grains are egg or kidney-shaped 
and are distinctly marked with curved lines or ridges, which surround 
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