1156 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXXI, No. 12 
per cent in seedlings which grew for 4 days. In like manner seedlings 
which grew between moist paper towels for 2, 4, and 8 days yielded 
extracts which contained, respectively, 25.16,44.18, and 48.13 per cent 
of nitrogen. Similar results were obtained with the seedlings whose 
seed was treated with uspulun solution. That the extracts of the 
second series have, as a rule, a lower nitrogen content than the cor¬ 
responding extracts of the first series is due to the fact that in the 
latter series a considerably larger quantity of water was used for the 
extractions. The higher nitrogen content of the aqueous extracts in 
both series as compared with the nonprotein nitrogen in Table I was 
to be expected, because the water extracts contain, in addition to the 
nonprotein nitrogen compounds, also the nitrogen of soluble proteins 
such as albumin and proteose. 
Acidity op the Aqueous Extracts 
In the course of the work it was noticed that the water extracts of 
the different seedlings showed a more or less pronounced acid reaction. 
It was deemed of considerable interest to find out whether or not there 
is a definite relationship between the acidity on the one side and the 
conditions of germination on the other. With this object in view 
the aqueous extracts used in Table III were applied to the acidity 
estimations. Inasmuch as the aqueous extracts of the various 
seedlings were more or less colored, the color intensity increasing 
with the length of the germination, it was thought best uniformly 
to dilute all of the extracts with water so as to have identical dilutions 
capable of giving sharp titration end points. Accordingly, the follow¬ 
ing procedure was employed: To 20 c. c. of the water extracts in 
question diluted with 100 c. c. of distilled water, which was neutral 
to phenolphthalein, 10 drops of this indicator were added and directly 
titrated with N/10 sodium hydroxide. The data obtained are 
recorded in Table IV. 
In glancing over Table IV it will be seen that the extract of the 
ungerminated seed (Nos. 17 and 18) showed the lowest acidity, which 
could be neutralized with but 0.25 c. c. tenth-normal sodium hydroxide. 
The acidity rose in the extracts of the seedlings that grew on sand for 
three and four days (Nos. 1 to 4) to 0.91 and 1.26, respectively. In 
like manner the extracts of seedlings that were grown on paper for 
2, 4, and 8 days (Nos. 5 to 10), respectively, show a gradually increas¬ 
ing acidity of 0.39, 0.73, and 1.19, respectively. Similarly, the 
extracts of seedlings, previously treated with uspulun solution, which 
were grown on paper for 4, 8, and 11 days (Nos. 11 to 16) showed 
the acidities of 0.71, 0.93, and 1.12, respectively. Thus, in all cases 
the acidity may be said to have risen with the duration of the ger¬ 
mination. The differences in acidity between the ungerminated 
seed on the one hand and the seedlings on the other are so great as 
to make unnecessary the recalculation to the weight of the original 
oven-dried seed. 
