From 1953 to 1955, studies on the relation between the spike formation and the stage development of two varieties of wheat (spring wheat 2419 and winter wheat "Hsiao-Hung-Moun") has been carried out at Shanghai. The results of these experiments may be summarized as follows: 1. When sowned in autumn, the growing cones of both varieties of wheat were not elongated at the end of the thermo-stage. 2. Winter wheat "Hsiao-Hung-Moun", either sowned in spring with vernalized seeds or sowned in autumn, and spring wheat 2419 sowned in spring with vernalized seeds, completed their photo-stage in the course of the formation of stamens and pistils. 3. The striking effect of the day-length on the differentiation of the growing cones of both varieties of wheat, either sowned in spring with vernalized seeds or sowned in autumn, was observed in periods from the elongation of the growing cone to the formation of the primodia of spikelets. The longer the day length, the earlier the differentiation of the growing cones. 4. Different treatment with varied length of light of the planks, before the elongation of their growing cones, influenced the rate of the later stages of the differentiation of the growing cones, 24-hour illumination accelerated this process.

Four quantifies of a late variety of unglutinous flee, Lao-lai-ching, harvested in the current year (1954) were sunned/or different periods of time to have their respective moisture contents reduced to 13.6%, 15.2%, 17.2%and 19.6%. From each of them six equal portions were taken and placed in six replicated 1000-ml bottles, three aerated and three sealed up. These 24 bottles were equally grouped and stored in three incubators at different temperatures, 15℃, 25℃ and 35℃, and they were arranged in such a way that one pair of bottles (one aerated and one sealed up)from each of the above-mentioned four groups with different percentages of moisture content were put in one incubator. Three months later, determinations of the percentage of germination and fatty acid, the vitamin B1 content, the number and kinds of molds and the grade of the dehulled rice turned out therefrom were made. From the results thus obtained we find as follows: 1. From the standpoint of the maintenance of the germination percentage, the appropriate moisture content of rice grains during storage should be less than 13% at 35℃, not over 15% at 25℃ and no more than 17% at 15℃. 2. Laboratory storage of rice with different moisture contents for three months under both sealed-up and aerated conditions at different temperatures showed differences in fatty acid content from the original samples. The factors favouring the increase in fatty acid content are: (1) high temperature and (2) high moisture content. 3. There are certain relations between the fatty acid content and the grade of the dehulled rice. Generally, the higher the fatty acid content is, the lower will be the grade of rice. As regards the vitamin B1 content, however, only very slight changes were noticed. 4. The number of mold spores per gram of rice grains stored under the aerated condition was notoably different from that of mold spores per gram of rice grains stored under the sealed-up condition. Further analysis showed more tremendous differences at different temperatures in the aerated bottles than in the sealed-up bottles. 5. The molds isolated most often from the rice grains were Aspergillus sp. Alternaria tenuis, Brachysporium sp., Cladosporium herbarum, Cephalothecium roseum, Curvularia lunata,Fusarium spp., Helminthosporium oryzae, Helicoceras sp., Nigrospora oryzae Mucor spp., Penicillium spp., Phoma sp., and Trichoconis Padwickii. At 35 ℃, isolations made from rice grains under the aerated condition gave birth chiefiy to Aspergillus spp., Mucor spp., and Penicillium spp., and those from the sealed-up ones brought forth Penicillium spp., and Tricoconis Padwickii. At 25 ℃ and 15℃, all the 14 genera of molds listed above were isolated from individual rice kernels in both the aerated and dealed-up bottles with the agar-plate method. 6. It is a general .experience that the newly-harvested Lao-lai-ching offers superior white unglutinous rice when dehulled. If one intends to maintain this high grade for three months or longer, he has to keep the moisture content of rice grains at less than 14% at 35℃, not over 14% at 25℃ and around 15% at 15℃. This paper discusses certain complex interrelationships amoung the percentage of germination, the fatty acid content., the vitamin B1 content, the number and kinds of molds, and the grade of the dehulled rice. It points out the necessity for further physiological and biochemical investigations in connection with grain storage.

Vegetative hybridization between Sea Island cotton (G. barbadense L.) and Upland cotton (G. hirsutum L.) has been carried out since 1950. Varieties of the two species used in this investigation were: G. barbadense L. Sea Island cotton Wenghan perennial cotton Lianher perennial cotton Shihping perennial cotton Lhaderfuejin G. hirsutum L. D.P.L. 14 Delfose 531 Combodia Lihsien 72 Inarching and cleft-grafting were employed. Both stock arid scion were used as mentors in order to obtain desirable influence. This investigation has led to the following conclusions: 1. Inarching was the simplest grafting operation. It assured over 90% of successful union. Cleft-grafting, when skilfully performed, gave 70% stand. 2. When inarching was employed, adventitious roots developed after the cut surface was immersed into water. It was suggested that this might be used toadvantage in rapid propagation of valuable materials. 3. Special attention must be paid to enviromental conditions and to making adjustments of the number of leaves for the purpose of getting desirable effect of the mentor. 4. When properly grafted and trained by the method of vegetative hybridization, variations in physiological characters of the Sea Island cotton could be detected during the growing season. The grafted plants came into flower one month earlier than control. 5. It was interesting to note that the character of early flowering became even more apparent in the second and the third generations; some plantes came into flower two months earlier, these indicating that this character has been altered and inherited. Wide varieability with regarded to the degree of the earliness was also observed. 6. After grafting for two times, the improvement on earliness of the Sea Island cotton seemed to have been strengthened and stabilized. 7: Instances of the mentor influence, such as: (1) the first fruiting branch appearing from the 5th to the 14th nodes, (2) the length of fiber varying from 30.25 to 47.00 mm, (3) the height of plant varying from 93 to 217 cm, (4) the length of the first node of fruiting branch varying from 4 to 20 cm etc., could be readily examined and lead us to understand that alteration and segregation of characters did occur in the progenies of vegetative hybrids. 8. These conclusive evidences gave us an increased understanding on the essence of heredity and proved concretely that the theories developed by Mendelian-Morganian geneticists did not stand criticism. In Nanking, it was difficult to obtain mature seeds of Sea Island cotton under ordinary growing conditions. Plants had to be transferred into a greenhouse to mature. But progenies of vegetative hybrids proved that the production of Sea Island cotton, which was of warm climate origin, could be extended to further north temperature regions.

The work of sexual crossing and grafting in this experiment was started in 1951 between two tomato varieties: the Golden Beauty, a variety with large and yellow fruits of multiple cells, and the Livingstone Globe, a variety with small and red fruits of two cells. Grafting hybridization: A scion was taken from a young seedling of the Golden Beauty and grafted on the Livingstone Globe as the mentor. Leaves were removed from the scion as many as possible in order to force the fruits borne on the scion to feed on the plastic substances transported from the stock. Sexual hybridization: in one group, the Golden Beauty was used as the female parent, and to the pistils of its castrated flowers was applied the pollen of the Livingstone Globe used as the male parent; in another group, vise versa. The seeds harvested from the hybridized fruits of grafts and of crossed plants were propagated successively for the first generations (F1) in the year 1952. F2 plants raised from the fruits borne on each of different kinds of F1 plants were planted in the next year 1953. Observations made on the variations of the fruit character in the successive generations are summarized as follows: 1. In grafting hybridization, there is no appreciable difference between the fruit of the Golden Beauty and those of the scion which is of the same variety. And in sexual crossing, there is no variation either during the year of hybridization. 2. Vegetative hybrids F1 express segregation and according to the fruit size and colour of the plant, they can be classified into three groups: (1) Fruits large and yellow like those of the Golden Beauty, from which the scion was taken; (2) Fruits red like those of the stock, that is, the Livingstone Globe, but their size intermediate between that of the fruits of both parents; (3) Fruits red in colour like those of the stock, but large in size like those of the plant, from which the scion was taken. Sexual hybrids F1 as well as one group of vegetative hybrids F1 show uniformity, giving both to fruits red in colour and intermediate in size. The segregation of vegetative hybrids F1 indicates that we may win the effort of plant breeding by selection earlier than in the case of sexual hybrids F1. 3. Sexual and vegetative hybrids F2 express the same tendency of heredity, according to four kinds of fruit colour (red, yellow, pink, golden yellow), fruit weight and the time of ripening. 4. Sexual and vegetative hybrids are segregated in F2. Vegetative hybrids F2 express the phenomena of multiple forms more than the sexual hybrids F2, so that vegetative hybridization is much better in plant breeding by selection. 5. That hybrids are produced by grafting indicates that nutritional condition can cause a change of inheritance and produce variability, thus confirming that the acquired character is inheritable. 6. The vegetative hybridization and the sexual hybridization are phenomena of the same order; they may have a common basis of metabolism. Those hybrids having an abundant, complex and unstable character of inheritance and with the possibility of producing the phenomena of multiple kinds and types, similar to or different from the parents, are good for selection. Vegetative and sexual hybridization has the same effect on plant breeding.

Cultivation of haitai (Laminaria japonica Aresch.) in North China, to date, has been confined to Tsingtao, Chefoo and Dairen, and in these places, conducted only in heavily polluted harbours, in bays where sewage disposal takes place and in their immediate vicinities, in these places, haitai grows very fast and in a single growing season (from November to June of the next year), the thallus may grow to 3-4 meters long, 25-30 cm broad and 2-3 mm thick, weighing as much as 1 kilogr am and showing a healthy chestnut brown color. In other places along the North China coast, however, growth of the haitai is very poor, and within a growth season, the thallus rarely reaches more than one meter in length, usually only 50-60 cm long, the color is of a pale yellowish brown, and the product is not of commercial value. In such places, therefore, commercial cultivation of the haitai is not carried on. Evidently, the difference in the growth of haitai in these two types of localities is a matter of the fertility of the waters, sea water temperature and light not being the limiting facters. Thus, it is of great importance to our haitai cultivation industry, if ways and means could be devised by which the fertility of a selected body of sea water can be raised effectively and, of even greater importance, economically. Gross et al (1944) had conducted experiments in an enclosed sea loch for observing the effect of fertilizer application on the growth of phytoplanktons, zooplanktons, benthic animals and ultimately flatfishes. Later, experiments were conducked by Gross et al (1946) in an open sea loch for the same purposes. In both cases, the results were encouraging. Gross et al, however, had not made the studies from the economic point of view and had not investigated into the production of flatfishes so that calculation could be made on the amount of fertilizer required to yield a kilogram of the fish. It has been an established fact for ages that increasing the fertility of the soil by the addition of fertilizers will lead to an increase in the production of crops. Even in aquiculture, the addition of fertilizer to a body of water to increase fish production has long been a practice in many places. No one will even question if pouring tons of fertilizer into open bays would increase the production of phytoplanktons and benthic plants. Rather, the question is: will the resulting increase in production be worth the amount of fertilizer thus consumed? Owing to the ceaseless movement of sea water, fertilizers if artificially added to open bays will mostly be lost to the sea outside, although Gross et al (1946) estimated that the loss is not serious. The amount of loss will depend, of course, on the configuration of the bay. Ways and means must therefore be sought to decrease the amount of loss due to water movement in order that the methods of fertilizer application could be of practical value. Haitai and other seaweeds grow only in a certain layer of the sea water and in the cultivation of haitai, these plants grow on racks which are several meters apart from each other. Evidently, fertilization of the entire body of water, as in the experiments of Gross et al, is not necessary. Whatever practical method of fertilizer application is to be successful in seaweed cultivation, it must be one in which fertilizer application is limited to selected spots, thus minimizing loss of the fertilizer to the places where the particular seaweed does not occur. The method which we have devised takes advantage of the porous nature of earthen-wares. Fertilizers were added into specially made elongated earthen bottles, which were then filled with sea water, rubber-stoppered, sealed, and horizontally tied in specially made elongated bamboo baskets suspended horizontally in the one meter layer below the sea surface. Thalli of the haitai, 30 cm long, were twisted in ropes, and the ropes tied laterally on the baskets (cf. the illustrations). The kinds of fertilizers used were: sodium nitrate and ammonium nitrate as source of nitrogen and trisodium phosphate, apatite and apatite powder as sources of phosphorus. Porosity of the earthen-wares admits the gradual outflow of the enclosed fertilizer in solution. In our experiments, the amount of the dissolved salts diffused out into the sea was, on the average, about 50 grams per bottle per day. The results were very encouraging and in one experiment (Experiment V), within a growth period of 94 days, the thalli grew to over 2 meters in length, and was in every respect of commercial value. In this particular experiment, the average airdried weight of the thalli was 33.2 gram and daily increase 353.2 mg as aginst 7.9 grams and 84.0 mg respectively for the control, representing an increase of 320% in weight. In another experiment (Experiment Ⅰ), the growth period of the thalli was 196 days, and when harvested, the air-dried weight of the thalli was 40.6 grams against 12.8 grams for the control, representing an increase of 220% in weight. From the economic point of view, this method of fertilizer application yields equally encouraging results, although the amount of fertilizers applied was still very high. In Experiment V mentioned above, m produce 1 kilogram of the haitai required 1.01 kilogram of the nitrogen fertilizer. In view of the great difference between the value of the produce and the cost of the fertilizer, the margin was still very broad. There is no doubt in our minds, that the methods could be improved and the results would be better. Unit area production based on the above experiments has been calculated and comparison made with the cultivation of wheat crops in the Tsingtao region. It was estimated that 209-265 kilograms of air-dried haitai could be harvested in one mow, or about 300-400 grams per square meter of the sea surface. Therefore, in both the quantity and the value of the produce, haitai cultivation yields better returns than local wheat growing, mow for mow.

Under the climatic conditions of Chengtu, art early variety of soybean, Pai-shuitou, is usually sown in early March and harvesed in late June. The seeds thus harvested will deteriorate during summer storage and cannot be used for propagation next spring. In order to maintain the seed viability, such soybean has to be sown once more immediately after harvest so as to yield fresh seeds in autumn for propagation next year. The yield of the second crop, however, is poor and the practice requires land and labour. The present investigation has shown that the seed deterioration in this variety of soybean is mainly due to the high temperature in the summer of Chengtu. If the soybean should be kept at a low temperature throughout the summer, the seed viability would be safely maintained to approach that of the second crop.