Specimens of wholemeal wheat flour from plots given various soil treatment were examined for vitamin B1 potency by the heart-rate method. The differences detected were not of a striking order, the relative values being as follows: treated with ammonium sulphate= 120; ammonium sulphate plus “complete mineral manure” = 120; dung = 100; no treatment= 100; complete mineral manure= 80. The lack of any striking variation was also confirmed by growth tests on the “sharps” prepared from the several grains.

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.

1. The formation of alkali soils is primarily a question of soluble salt accumulation. Those processes which bring about the accumulation of soluble salts in soils also tend to cause the accumulation of CaCO3. Under certain conditions simple calcium silicates may also be precipitated in alkali soils. Hilgard's researches were concerned chiefly with the soluble salts. On the other hand, more recent investigators have emphasised the base-exchange aspects of the subject. Sodium salts tend to react with the clay and humus constituents of the soil, converting them into Na-absorption compounds. These components produce extremely adverse conditions in the soil.

2. Under certain conditions alkali soils tend to pass through four evolutionary stages, namely, salinisation, alkalinisation, desalinisation, and degradation. As to whether or not an alkali soil will pass beyond the salinisation stage, depends on the composition of the soluble salts that accumulate in it. Where sodium salts predominate, more or less alkalinisation of the exchange complex has taken place. However, this is not true where soluble calcium is relatively abundant.

3. Desalinisation (by leaching, whether natural or artificial) of alkalinised soil is usually accompanied by the formation of Na2CO3 and by pronounced deflocculation. If CaCO3 be present, the formation of Na2CO3 is accompanied by the replacement of absorbed sodium by calcium. Under these conditions the degradation stage will not be attained. If CaCO3 be absent, base-unsaturated constituents arise under leaching conditions, and more or less of the inorganic-exchange complex becomes decomposed into simple oxides.

An attempt has been made in the investigation described in this paper to elucidate the nutritional characteristics of winter pasturage. The yield, composition and digestibility have been determined of pasturage produced by unrestricted growth over the following periods: (1) end of July 1932 to December 1932; (2) end of August 1932 to January 1933; (3) end of September 1932 to February 1933; (4) end of October 1931 to March 1932. In both years of experiment the winters were mild and open, and the conditions as a whole were such as to enable the nutritional possibilities of winter grazing to be studied under the most favourable conditions. In order to assess the influence of winter conditions on composition and feeding value the results in every case have been compared with data, obtained in investigations in previous years on the same pasture, for spring and summer herbage of comparable height, stage of growth and botanical composition.

1. Pasture soil was found to be characterised by relatively high ammonia and low nitrate-nitrogen content during the main growing period (May-September). Applications of sulphate of ammonia while initially raising the ammonia and nitrate-nitrogen levels, ultimately led to a lowering. The effect of irrigation during the spring, when the soil moisture content was high, was to depress the ammonia and nitratenitrogen levels, but during the dry summer months and subsequently the levels were appreciably raised.

2. A small though definite periodic change in the reaction of normal grassland soil took place during the season, the soil being most acid during the summer. Added sulphate of ammonia slightly accentuated the change, and the return to normal in the autumn was not quite attained.

In this communication are brought forward the results of digestion trials designed to discover the degree to which pigs are able to digest and utilise young grass. Three digestion trials have been carried out. In the first trial, the digestibility of a basal ration composed of equal parts of maize meal and coarse middlings was determined. In the following two periods, the amount of basal food was cut down to an appropriate level and definite weights of the grass to be tested were added. In period 2, very short, leafy grass, containing, on the basis of dry matter, 26·04 per cent, of crude protein and 16·73 per cent. of crude fibre, was used, whilst somewhat older grass, containing 16·76 and 19·42 per cent. crude protein and fibre respectively, was fed in the third period.

It was found that the Large White hogs, which averaged about 195 lb. live-weight during the carrying out of the grass periods of feeding, were unable, with the exception of the fibrous component, to digest the constituents of even young grass with anything like the same degree of efficiency as they displayed in the digestion of the basal ration of middlings and maize meal. The constituents of the older grass, with the exception of the crude protein, were not markedly less digestible than those of the very young grass. The relative values of the pasturage and mixed meal are best brought out by the data for the digestion coefficients of the total organic matter; the pigs were able to digest about 85 per cent. of the organic matter of the meal, and only 60–62 per cent. of that contained in the grass.

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. The loss of activity of pyrethrum flowers and preparations has been studied.

2. The degree of concordance between the content of pyrethrin I, as determined by the acid method, and the insecticidal value of pyrethrinised dusts, before and after exposure to air and artificial illumination, has been statistically examined. The pyrethrin I values, corrected for a small residual amount of extraneous matter, indicate fairly closely the degree of activity of the samples. The loss of pyrethrins on exposure has been traced out quantitatively.

3. A comparison was made between two samples of pyrethrum flowers, one rich and the other poor in pyrethrins, in order to determine the degree of concordance between the pyrethrin I content and their toxicity. The pyrethrin I value as determined by the acid method, subject to a small correction, gave a good indication of the relative activities of the samples.

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.

A description is given of a peculiar condition which developed in certain animals being fed rations at present in use for the nutrition of swine in this country.

The experimental treatments which were being imposed at the time bore no relation to the onset of the symptoms which appeared to develop indiscriminately.

The animals refused food, adopted a swaying or “drunken” gait, at a later stage lost the power of their limbs and finally became prostrate.

1. Partial regression equations representing the average drainage observed in any month in terms of the temperature and rainfall of that month, and including terms representing the mean secular rate of change of the drainage discharge and of its regression coefficients on rainfall and temperature, have been fitted to the thirty-six series of observations provided by the three Rothamsted drain gauges in the twelve months of the year.

2. An account is given of adequate and direct numerical methods of handling equations involving observed quantities, and chosen functions of them, as independent variates, and of calculating standard errors appropriate to the several sorts of comparison which are to be made.

3. In the absence of direct knowledge of the amount of water contained from time to time in the soil mass of the gauge it has been customary to assume that the lower average drainage of the summer months is directly due to a greater amount of evaporation taking place in these months. The results of the present enquiry direct attention to a second possibility, namely that the water content of the gauges differs considerably at different times of the year, and that the high drainage in winter is in part to be ascribed to the accumulation of water during the rainy months of autumn, while the lower drainage in summer is due to the partial depletion of the gauges during the lower rainfall of the spring months.

When assessing the value of any variety of a commercial plant one is concerned with a number of different features of the plant's behaviour, among others winter-hardiness. The behaviour with regard to most of these features is tested by methods which have been carefully planned and whose reliability has been proved, but the determination of winter-hardiness is still a matter of observing the reaction of the plants to the conditions prevailing at that season of the year. However, in England, particularly in the southern counties, the winters are comparatively mild and it is only occasionally that the climate provides a really good test of the plant's resistance. On the other hand it is necessary to have some knowledge of the winter-hardiness of a variety, since otherwise disastrous results may follow on a really hard winter. A method of determining the resistance of new varieties in the laboratory would provide the solution to this problem.

The heat of wetting measurement has been introduced into soil science by E. A. Mitscherlich(1), who constructed for his investigations a rather complicated apparatus, consisting of an ice calorimeter which had been adapted for the special requirements of soil tests. Mitscherlich used the heat of wetting as a measurement of the heaviness of different soils, but soon found the technique too difficult, and later preferred the wellknown hygroscopicity determination which he had worked out in collaboration with H. Rodewald(2).

A nitrogen balance experiment of ten weeks' duration with two Rhode Island Red laying hens is described.

The observed variations in the retention of nitrogen for egg-producing purposes do not appear to be connected with the output of egg nitrogen or with the number of eggs laid in the various egg cycles.

The view held by other workers that the nitrogen required for egg production can be largely if not entirely drawn from the food supplied during the laying period is confirmed.

The marked storage of nitrogen which has been shown to occur immediately prior to the commencement of egg laying is not repeated during the laying period, and it is suggested that during a period of heavy egg production synthesis of the nitrogenous constituents of the egg proceeds at a fairly uniform rate.

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.

The sedimentation method for the mechanical analysis of poly-disperse systems such as a suspension of soil in water is now in its various modifications a well-established technique of analysis(1). Unfortunately, they all, with one exception, involve interference of some kind with the process of sedimentation itself; either by the introduction of pipettes and hydrometers, or the opening of drain-cocks, and the one exception, viz. the sedimentation balance, is subject to a considerable error of a different kind (2). The present paper describes the results of attempts to use the transmission of a beam of light through a glass cell, as a measure of the sedimentation process taking place within it, the transmitted light being received on a photo-electric cell.

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.

The economic importance of the common heather or ling (Calluna vulgaris) is little appreciated by those not intimately concerned with the preservation of game, or the management of hill sheep, and investigators have given scant attention to its composition and feeding value. Yet it is the staple food of the grouse and, in many districts, contributes largely to the diet of the Blackface sheep. The young and tender shoots are eaten at all seasons of the year, but are of special value in winter, for heather is evergreen and withstands the action of frost in normal years. Further, its habit of growth is such that sheep may obtain access to it during snowy weather.

The fungicidal and phytocidal properties of manufactured hydrocarbons and their simpler hydroxyl-derivatives and esters have been examined by application in spray-form to young leaves of hops bearing powdery patches of the hop powdery mildew (Sphaerotheca humuli (D.C.) Burr.). The sprays were prepared by agitation with 0·25 per cent. Agral I solutions. For ease of description the term fungicidal is applied only to sprays which are lethal to the fungus, whilst a spray is termed phytocidal when injury to the leaf results at areas not invaded by the fungus.

1. Benzene was fungicidal and phytocidal at concentrations of 2 per cent., whereas the hydrogenation products, cyclohexane, methyl cyclohexane and dekalin, were inactive at this concentration. Fungicidal and phytocidal properties were shown at 7 per cent, of the two former, and 3–4 per cent. of the latter.