1. Sanders’ method of utilising previous crop records to correct experimental results by means of a linear regression is briefly described.

2. The method is applied to yield figures from rubber trees in Sumatra, and the precision of a dummy experiment is thereby increased nearly fourfold when the “preliminary” and “experimental” years are consecutive. When the “experimental” year is three years later than the “preliminary” year, the error variance of the adjusted yields is reduced to about a half.

3. It is concluded that not only has the method of correction been of value in the particular instance investigated, but that a uniformity trial utilised in this way should be of practical value in any major field experiments with rubber.

Mole draining or its equivalent has been practised on clay land for many years; indeed, according to Richardson and Fussell, writing in the Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture, 1922, a patent for a mole plough was taken out in England in 1797. Fowler's mole plough appeared about 1850, and since then this type of implement, drawn by steam engines, has played an important and valuable part in the farming of the heavy arable areas of the eastern counties. Dr R. McG. Carslaw and Mr A. W. Menzies-Kitchin have recently (1933) collected much useful information on mole draining practice in East Anglia. The data were obtained from some 80 farms, and are summarised in Report No. 21 of the Farm Economics Branch of the Cambridge University Department of Agriculture. Dealing with the mechanical side of the subject, the Report states “ …it was rather surprising to find that tractors had been used for draining only on 3 out of 75 farms, and that on two of these, steam engines had also been employed. On one farm…a team of 10 horses, and on two others, oil engines…On the remaining farms, representing 95% of the total, power was supplied by steam engines.” In respect of the durability of mole drains the Report states “The data showed considerable variation in the length of life of mole drains, but the average life appeared to lie round about 13 years, with an average range of from 8 to 19 years… Silting, stated generally to be caused by the presence of loose sand and/or gravel in the clay subsoil, was the most common cause of failure.”

The most obvious lines of investigation for the discovery of some method of controlling parasitic gastritis in lambs are those which endeavour to find a means either of killing the parasitic worms in the stomach and intestine, or of destroying the free-living larval stages which are present in the soil. Both of these lines have been diligently followed by research workers in different countries throughout the world, numerous drugs have been tried for the cure of affected sheep and many substances tried for ridding the land of infective larvae; but apart from treatment with copper sulphate or carbon tetrachloride, to which only Haemonchus contortus responds, none has given promise of success.

Three varieties, characterised by the possession of varying degrees of resistance to lodging, were grown in a Latin square with a view to determining if any character could be found which would serve as a stable criterion of resistance to lodging.

Observations were made and analysed for all those morphological characters associated with strength of straw. The characters examined were: tillering, length of straw, lengths of internodes, diameter of fifth internode, thickness of culm wall, number of vascular bundles, width of lignified tissue in a cross-section, and thickness of sclerenchyma cell walls.

The object of this paper is to define exactly the variations in the price of meat carcases due to variations in weight and to variations in quality, as shown by differences in the conformation according to breed, etc.; that is, to get facts on which a scientific system of grading meat carcases could be based.

It is suggested that the covariance method of statistical analysis is of considerable value in correcting for uncontrolled inequalities arising early in an experiment, and in analysing the effects of developmental factors on yield. As an example its application to the results of an experiment with beans is described.

It is with great pleasure that the writers acknowledge their indebtedness to Dr J. Wishart for his helpful criticism throughout the work.

There are three by-products obtained from the preparation of legume seeds for human consumption which are marketed as supplemental animal foods, namely, the seed-coats (testa) which are removed from beans, peas and lentils. They are known commercially by various names, “skins,” “shells,” “husks,” “hulls” and as “offals.” They are used extensively in the East for the nutrition of cattle, where dehusked legumes enter so largely into the dietary of humans. Bean, pea and lentil husks are all used for stock feeding in Britain, and it was the frequency with which pea husks were found in commercial sheep-feeding mixtures sent for examination, and the knowledge that considerable consignments of bean shells are from time to time imported, that led to this enquiry into their nutritive value. Previous to the adoption of the Foodstuffs and Fertilisers Act, 1926, bean husks were imported into Britain in larger quantities than is at present the case, some of them being ground and added to bean meal, a practice which one has reason to believe has now ceased. Bean husks are seldom fed as such to cattle in Britain, but in France they are given to dairy cows and horses. For cows they are mixed with beet pulp, oil cakes and bran with, it is stated, good results. For horses they are mixed with oats, and an informant, a farmer from Cambrai, mixes them in equal proportions with oats for his working horses, giving to each 30 litres per day. It is claimed that the addition of the husks causes a more complete mastication of the oats and that horses do well on the mixture.

1. Inoculated lucerne was grown alone and in association with Italian rye grass, in pots of sand watered with food solution and given three different doses of sodium nitrate.

2. The dose of nitrate did not affect the dry weight or nitrogen content of lucerne when grown alone, save that the highest dose checked the root growth somewhat.

3. When lucerne and Italian rye grass were grown in association, the growth of the grass varied directly with the dose of nitrate applied, and the growth of the lucerne varied inversely to it. Checking of the lucerne growth was probably due to root competition with the grass.

The present communication is the second contribution to the study of the nutritive characters of the lucerne crop. It deals with investigations that are the outcome of certain preliminary trials carried out in the 1932 season and reported on in an earlier communication(1). The primary object of the present trials was to investigate the composition, digestibility and nutritive value of the first, second and third growths of lucerne under conditions of systematic cutting at the stages of (1) bud and (2) flower. A determination of the digestibility and nutritive value of lucerne in its pre-budding stage of growth was also made. In addition, account has been kept of the effect of cutting lucerne systematically at certain definite stages of growth, namely, pre-budding, budding and flowering, on the yields per acre of dry matter, starch equivalent and digestible protein, and on the health and vigour of the crop.

In a recent article on the above subject by Dunlop (1) reference was made to a method suggested by Sheehy and Senior (2) for the purpose of “making an adjustment in tlie weight cuive, where, through accident or other cause not arising out of feeding, the weight of a particular animal on an exceptional occasion deviated widely from the general trend of its live weight record. A slight injury, for instance, would on occasion cause an animal either to lose weight or merely to maintain its previous weight for a week, thus placing the group to which it belonged at a disadvantage during that week” (2). Since Dunlop asserts that the method suggested “is based on a fallacy” by which is implied that it is inaccurate, the necessity arises, so as to prevent the formation of a wrong impression, to show that Dunlop's reasoning in this connection is based on incorrect impressions.

Two methods of determining the weight and one method of determining the volume of water imbibed by a soil have been discussed. The results of these methods have been shown to be concordant by an independent method.

The tentative conclusion reached is that the weight of water a soil imbibes can be readily determined by Fisher's method or from the Keen-Raczkowski box, but that the volume of imbibed water cannot yet be directly determined accurately.

The following paper is the first of a projected series on the results of work which has been in progress in the Animal Calorimetry Department of this Institute during the past five years. Subsequent papers will deal with body temperature variations, effects of environmental temperature, metabolism, energy expenditure, etc.

The note by E. J. Sheehy on a method of correction in the weight curve of certain animals in group-feeding experiments(l) has been brought to the author's notice.