Treatment of Cotton Seed 
45 
to germinate, temperatures ranging from 100 to 121° C. for a period 
of one hour. He found that Avena sativa and Hordeum distichum with¬ 
stood a temperature of 118° C. and Medicago sativa survived 121° C. although 
exposure, at temperatures near the maximum increased the time needed for 
germination. 
In 1917, Wagonner 01 published the results of experiments on the effect 
of different temperatures on the viability of radish seeds whose water con¬ 
tent varied from 0.4 per cent to 71 per cent. The temperatures employed 
ranged from 50 to 125° C. and the seed were heated in stoppered flasks, 
immersed in a water bath. When heated at 60° C., those seeds whose initial 
Plate 4. Cleveland big boll cotton of the 1924 crop growing in the field after a, dry 
heat treatment which consisted of preliminary desiccation at 60-65° for 22 hours and 
subsequent heating at 95-100° C. for 12 hours. This seed was of poor quality to begin with 
because of unfavorable weather at the time it was maturing, and the treatment reduced 
the germination from 69 per cent to 60 per cent. The seed was planted on April 23 and 
the photograph was taken on May 21. During most of this time, the weather was very 
unfavorable for growth of cotton. From 50 to 75 per cent of the seedlings of the general 
crop died largely from an attack of anthracnose following cold weather and the greater 
portion of the acreage had to be replanted. In the treated plot sickly seedlings were 
extremely rare and in no case could anthracnose spores be found on the few which were 
present while anthracnose spores were abundant on 90 to 100 per cent of the sickly 
seedlings found on untreated plots. Although the seedlings on the rteated plots were making 
but little growth they were sturdy, remarkably healthy and possessed strikingly good color 
in comparison with seedings from untreated seed on nearby plots. 
water content was 45 per cent or more were killed whereas those containing 
only 4 per cent of water suffered no reduction in percentage of germination. 
Complete loss of viability occurred when seeds containing 4 per cent of 
water were heated at 100° C. while on the contrary seeds containing only 
0.4 per cent of moisture gave as high a percentage of germination as un¬ 
treated seed. A small percentage of the seeds containing 0.4 per cent water 
survived a temperature of 123° C. Thus the resistance of radish seeds 
