New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 229 
This happens even when the seeds have been sterilized on the 
outside and the germination apparatus also sterilized, as in the fol- 
lowing exepriment: From each of twenty samples of alfalfa seed 
sent to the Station from as many different places in the State, ten 
brown, shriveled seeds were selected. The 200 seeds thus obtained 
were divided into two lots of 100 seeds each in such manner that 
the two lots were exact duplicates, each of them containing five seeds 
from each of the twenty original samples. One lot (I) of the seeds 
was soaked 45 minutes in a I-I000 corrosive sublimate solution to 
sterilize them externally. By means of sterile forceps the seeds 
were then transferred to a Geneva seed-tester’ previously steam 
sterilized.®° The other lot (Il) of seeds, unsterilized, was placed 
in the seed-tester at the same time for a check. The temperature 
to which the seeds were exposed varied from about 16° to 23° C. 
At the end of nine days the condition of the seeds was as follows: 
Lot I (sterilized): 26 germinated, 30 moldy, the fungus being 
Alternaria in 25 cases; Lot II (check): 31 germinated, 34 moldy, 
the fungus being Alternaria in 28 cases. Seemingly, external 
sterilization of the seeds does not greatly reduce the tendency to 
mold. 
What relation the Alternaria bears to the seed — whether that of 
a parasite or merely a saprophyte —can not be stated. Neither was 
it determined to what species the Alternaria belongs. Usually, it is 
quite black and produces multitudes of spores. 
_A molding and rotting of alfalfa seed in Colorado has been dis- 
cussed by Headden,®! but he gives no clue to the identity of the 
fungi concerned ‘in the trouble. 
4y- 
EROS Te BEISTERS ONAL PALPA LEAVES. 
The usual effect of frost on alfalfa leaves is to cause them to be- 
come blistered on the lower surface through the separation of the 
epidermis from the parenchyma. ‘This has been described previ- 
™For a description of the Geneva seed-tester see Rpt. of this Station, 
2(1883) :67; also in Bot. Gag. 10:425. 
The copper body of the seed-tester and the cloth pockets which hold 
the seeds were placed in an autoclave for twenty minutes at a temperature 
of about 120° C. and a pressure of fifteen pounds. After the apparatus 
had been put together it was placed over a gas flame for two hours to 
complete the sterilization. 
*Headden (41, p. 13). 
