232 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REPORT. | 
varieties. * * * Qur experience with ‘grocery seeds,’ that is 
the packages from boxes distributed to be sold on commission, 
has been so extremely unsatisfactory that we are fain to believe 
that it is only the ignorance of the purchaser that retains this 
abominable system of sale.” 2 
The statement is made*! that “in the early spring we could not 
but notice the variation that existed between the germinative prop- 
erty of our seeds as tested in our apparatus and the vegetative 
property under the circumstances of actual planting. We hence 
devised a series of trials for testing the relations, if any, between 
germination and vegetation — by germination meaning the vitality 
sufficient to form a radicle, and by vegetation the vitality required. 
to form a plant.” Seed from the same package was taken, a por- 
tion of which was tested in the seed germinator and the remainder 
planted in clean sand at what was supposed to be the proper depth 
for the seeds in question. ‘The results indicate that in the same 
seeds germinative capacity and vegetative capacity may exist in 
quite different amount. It was found that of the. seeds which 
germinated the percentage forming mature plants was very vari- 
able, ranging from 4 per ct. up. Wherever there was a low 
percentage of vegetation as compared with germination, the seeds 
were invariably more than one year old. The results are very 
pointed in indicating that with old seed germinating power alone 
is not a true index of vitality. 
In the light of our present day knowledge these results do not 
seem particularly surprising. In the case of old seeds it is mani- 
fest that 1f time in any way had injured the cotyledons or endo- 
sperm, making the stored plant food less available, if the embryo ° 
were uninjured, this would not necessarily lessen the percentage 
of germinations, although since the young plant could not properly 
utilize the food stored in the seed its chances of reaching maturity 
would be materially lessened. And if the germ itself had been 
slightly injured in the long storing process, even though strength 
sufficient might remain for germination it is probable that it would 
soon die. | 
The question how long seed may be kept without impairment 
of the germinating power is one of importance. In the early eighties 
a series of experiments was inaugurated along this line, the seed 
_being furnished by different standard seed houses of the country. 
A part of the table showing results is appended below. 
* Rpt. 5:56 (1886). 
