1150 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXXI, No. 12 
ring in plant tissues. Whereas hydrolysis of plant proteins with 
strong acids leads to amino acids, bacterial action when long enough 
continued leads to secondary products (fatty acids, amines) through 
deamination and decarboxylation. On the other hand, proteolysis 
under the influence of enzymes ordinarily present in seeds, seedlings, 
and generally in various plant tissues yields not only amino acids, 
but also asparagine and glutamine, instead of aspartic and glutaminic 
acids, which are obtained by acid hydrolysis. Whether asparagine 
and glutamine are formed secondarily from amino acids as advanced 
by Schulze (17) needs further confirmation. It is, therefore, not 
surprising that studies on the physiological processes which take 
place during seed germination, involving as they do catabolism of the 
nitrogenous seed compounds on the one hand and anabolism of 
new nitrogen compounds in the growing parts of the seedling on the 
other are very far from being complete. Nearly every investigator 
emphasizes the necessity of further studies of the physiological proc¬ 
esses in question. Thus Brown and Morris (2) state: 
The complex metabolic processes which take place during the germination 
of seeds have attracted, from the time of Th. De Saussure, a large amount of 
attention * * * nevertheless at the present time we are far from possessing 
an exact knowledge. * * * 
Toole (21), says: 
Although the volume of literature on seed germination is large, knowledge of 
the transformations which occur in the seed and seedling during germination is 
far from complete. Also, the data on the influence of specific external factors 
on germination are confusing. * * * 
In the study of seed germination herein reported etiolated corn 
seedlings only have been used. There is probably, during the first 
stage of germination, no essential difference between seedlings grown 
in the presence of light and those grown in its absence. As soon, 
however, as chlorophyll develops in the seedlings there is, along with 
the degradation of the seed proteins, which are so well known through 
the excellent work of Osborne (13, 14, 15) Chittenden (3), and their 
collaborators, considerable accumulation of carbohydrates in the 
seedlings by photosynthesis, which renders the estimation and isola¬ 
tion of the various nitrogenous disintegration products very difficult, 
and hence not quite accurate. On the other hand, etiolated seed¬ 
lings ordinarily use up the seed carbohydrates from which they 
derive the continual supply of energy necessary for vital activities. 
The nitrogen compounds in such seedlings, therefore, become 
gradually more concentrated. 
METHODS 
In order to obtain comparable results, the writer tried to maintain 
as uniform conditions as possible throughout this work. Thus, 
he used for his experiments the same variety of corn (Four County 
corn), which was bred by the Four County Grain Improvement 
Association at Ackley, Iowa, under the direction of the Iowa Agri¬ 
cultural Experiment Station. The seed was planted on perforated 
copper trays fairly uniformly, about 400 kernels per tray, between 
moist absorbent paper towels, and kept in a dark room at the con¬ 
stant temperature of 25° C. for the desired period. Only occasion¬ 
ally the temperature would rise to 26° or 27°. No watering whatever 
