1. For experimental purposes the treatment of cotton seed with sulphuric acid, prior to planting, has always been the custom at Barberton. In view of the doubts about the benefits of this treatment which were expressed by Christidis (1936), experiments were carried out at Barberton in the 1938–9 and 1939–40 seasons, to provide concrete proof, if possible, of the advantages which it was believed resulted from it.

2. A series of stand counts made soon after germination revealed definite benefits with acid treatment, in all experiments in both seasons. The seedlings emerged considerably earlier than those from untreated seeds, and the stands recorded at the final counts revealed a significant advantage for acid-treated seed, throughout the experiments. The second season's experiments gave a greater advantage for acid treating when meteorological conditions were bad than when they were good, but the advantage even with ideal weather was still significant. The benefit of acid treatment was shown to be greater, too, with poor samples of seed than with good, and with the smaller seed rate than with the greater.

1. A survey was made of swede fields in Cumberland and it was found that more than half the gross acreage was affected with Brown Heart to a greater or lesser extent.

2. The water-soluble boron content of soils from affected and non-affected fields was determined. In general the boron content of fields showing Brown Heart was less than 0·30 parts per million.

3. There is a close association between soil texture and the incidence of boron deficiency, a greater proportion of cases occurring on light soils.

4. Recent liming rather than the actual pH. level of the soil appears to be correlated with the occurrence of Brown Heart in the field.

5. It would appear that some prediction of the possibility of Brown Heart occurring might be made from a knowledge of the ‘available boron’ content of the soil taken in conjunction with such factors as the soil-texture and liming history of the field concerned.

1. A method of moderate accuracy suitable for the routine determination of potash on a large scale is described.

2. Certain minor alterations in the method of precipitation by Lewis & Marmoy are suggested.

3. Di-sodium monohydrogen phosphate is suggested as a solvent for the cobaltinitrite precipitate before the permanganate titration, thereby simplifying previous volumetric procedures.

The writer wishes to express his indebtedness to the Director of Malacca Rubber Plantations for permission to publish this work. Acknowledgement is also made of the routine work so loyally carried out by his Asiatic staff in the development of the method, especially Messrs Warrior and Thamboo, who were chiefly responsible.

Some disorders causing chlorosis and necrosis of the foliage of oil palms from three West African estates have been investigated by spectrochemical analysis of the dry leaflets for potassium, calcium, magnesium and manganese.

Statistical examination of the chemical analyses of leaflets from fronds of different ages, and from different positions along the frond, shows that it is important to sample and analyse separately at least upper, middle and lower fronds from each tree. Little is gained by analysing separately samples from different positions along the length of the frond.

The ‘bronzing’ diseases are tentatively ascribed to deficiency of potassium. One palm is probably a case of combined magnesium and potassium deficiency. One disease, ‘lemon frond’, cannot be attributed to a deficiency of any of the elements determined.

The differences in mineral composition of the leaflets between palms from the three estates are greater than those due to the diseases and a further survey is proposed to determine the range of variation of composition of healthy trees and the levels below which deficiencies set in.

The purpose of this note is to present the results of the analysis of a series of experiments for the existence of interactions between treatments tested and blocks. It is implicit in all modern designs which involve confounding and/or fractional replication that such interactions are negligible compared with the effects and interactions which the experiments are designed to estimate. The matter has been discussed from the theoretical point of view in a recent paper on confounding and fractional replication (Kempthorne, 1947). This note will consist of a short statement of the problem and the results of an examination of a series of experiments on sugar beet which provide information on the point in question.

1. Experience raised doubts as to the usefulness of filling gaps in bad stands of cotton at Barberton and experiments were conducted in two seasons to measure its effectiveness. The experiments gave clear-cut results.

2. Randomized gaps ranging from 20 to 40% of the stand were filled and left open for comparison, the filling being done 13 and 19 days after planting.

3. Any reduction in stand, though reducing yield per acre, led to large and significant increases in yield per plant, even when the spacing was 3 by 3 ft., wider than that normally used on the Station.

4. Replanting the gaps in a bad stand did not lead to any increase in yield per acre; there were, in fact, indications that this practice actually reduced yield per acre, the refills preventing plants of the original sowing from benefiting fully from the extra space available to them in a bad stand.

5. The general conclusion is that no useful purpose is served by refilling the gaps in poor stands of cotton with up to 40% of gaps.

The testing of a large number of varieties or treatments can generally be most conveniently made by the use of the quasi-factorial designs devised by Yates. The value of such designs is enhanced by the possibility of introducing further treatments on parts of the plots. The present paper describes a lattice square trial testing 25 organic treatments (actually 22 different treatments with a control represented three times) in which all combinations of nitrogen, phosphate and potash were also tested by splitting the plots and confounding the three-factor interaction with whole plots, the total number of split-plots being 300. Both the design and analysis are comparatively simple and straight-forward, and will serve as an example of the use of split-plot confounding in most types of quasi-factorial designs.

1. A large-scale experiment with 274 dairy cows has been carried out to determine whether urea can be a substitute for part of the protein requirement of the lactating. dairy cow.

2. It has been emphasized that any proteinsparing effect of urea or other sources of non-protein nitrogen can only be determined in the proteindeficient animal and one of the experimental treatments was therefore designed to supply well below that minimum requirement of protein compatible with milk production.

3. The addition of protein to such a ration increasing the percentage of crude protein in the production rations from 12·9 to 17·9 and the protein equivalent from 9·5 to 14·5 resulted in a significant increase in milk production. This gave ample confirmation of the protein deficiency of the low protein ration.

Seven experiments are reported in which iodinated casein was fed to pigs. The daily doses varied from 0·25 to 1·5 g. of iodinated casein per pig daily for periods of several weeks. While the higher doses adversely affected the rate of growth of the pigs, the smaller doses were not sufficiently effective to have any practical importance.

The thyroid glands of the pigs receiving the iodinated casein appeared to be slightly smaller in size, but their histological picture was not affected.

The effect of beet yellows virus on the yield of sugar beet was tested in the presence and absence of various fertilizers and farmyard manure. In general the manorial treatments increased the root and sugar yields of both infected and healthy plants, but the losses caused by infection increased proportionally as the mean yields increased. When the effects of nitrogen, farmyard manure and salt on mean yield were large, the losses caused by infection were increased more than proportionally.

The fertilizers had little effect in varying the symptoms of the disease. There was some indication that the red colour associated with some varieties of sugar beet was intensified by deficiency of phosphate and potash.

The effect of fertilizers on rate of spread of infection was variable, and again appeared to depend largely upon the magnitude of the fertilizer effects on mean yield. Nitrogen, phosphate and potash occasionally had positive effects, and salt had a fairly consistent negative effect. None of the effects appeared to be of any economic importance.

1. In Part I of the paper details are presented of a new technique for the study of oxygen availability to bacteria added to soil. In essentials the technique consists of adding a washed suspension of bacterial cells together with excess of suitable oxidizable substrate to air dried, sieved soil contained in Warburg vessels. The rate of oxygen uptake is looked upon as a function of the aeration conditions within the soil. The results can be expressed by means of a conventional figure called the aeration factor (or A.F.).

2. In Part II with the use of the technique it has been shown that two physical properties of soil which influence oxygen availability under the experimental conditions of the technique are (a) moisture content of the soil, (b) the amount of break-up of the soil crumbs. Since the A.F. measures the resultant effect produced by these factors it may be regarded as an index of soil aeration.

1. The aneurin content of samples of whole oat grain representing six commonly used varieties grown in different districts in Scotland and Wales did not vary widely and there were no appreciable varietal or geographical differences.

2. There was a significant positive correlation between aneurin and protein content (r = 0·42).

3. During the growth of the oat plant from the flowering stage a steady storage of aneurin in the kernels was observed until the crop was harvested, and there was a simultaneous decrease in the aneurin content of the dry matter of the hulls, leaves and straw, suggesting a translocation of aneurin from the leaves to the kernels during the maturation of the plant.

1. A manometric technique for the assessment of soil aeration, described in a preceding paper by Webley (1947), has been used for comparing the effects of the incorporation into soil of alginic acid (as the ion) and other organic materials on soil airwater relationships. Some of the shortcomings of the technique, as well as its advantages are described.

2. The addition of sodium alginate to a soil improves its crumb stability and its water-holding power. It is shown that the addition of 0-1 g. sodium alginate to 100 g. of the air-dried standard soil used in this work has a gross effect equivalent to an increase in the water-holding power of soil of 11%. The effect of the alginate rapidly increases to a maximum with increase of the concentration of the alginate. The incorporation of the relatively insoluble calcium alginate has but little effect on the soil airwater relationship. It is suggested that alginate confers hydrophilic properties on soil by its combination as an ion with one or more constituents of the soil particle, thereby presenting new surfaces with high water-holding powers.

3. Incorporation into soil of cellulose acetate, methyl cellulose or of carboxymethyl cellulose improves its water-air relationships.

The wartime expansion in the home production of grass, clover and other seeds raised the question of the value of such seeds as food for livestock, since during the later years of the war, surpluses that had been discarded on account of low germination or other causes were being sold to compound manufacturers for inclusion in cattle foods. During 1944, the writers made determinations of the digestibility and starch equivalents of the following seeds: ryegrass (a mixture of Italian and Perennial), red clover, lucerne and un-milled sainfoin. All the samples were reduced to a fine meal before being submitted to test in the digestion trials.

Apart from its lower content of digestible ether extract, ryegrass-seed meal resembles oats in respect of chemical composition, digestibility and starch equivalent. It is a carbohydrate concentrate, containing, on the dry matter basis, 69·4% of starch equivalent, including 7·3% of digestible protein.

1. An experiment on the riboflavin requirement of the White Wyandotte chick is described.

2. The minimal requirement for optimal food consumption was found to be 3·0 μg. riboflavin/g. food; for optimal growth 3·0 to 3·5 μg./g. food and for the prevention of curled-toe paralysis 3·6 μg./g. food.

3. At levels of riboflavin intake ranging from 1·7 to 6·2 μg./g. food the uric acid content of the blood plasma remained unchanged at approximately 6 mg./100 ml.

Although the usefulness of the flying bent (Molinia coerulea) as a grazing plant is admitted by all hill shepherds and by those technical workers who are interested in moorland swards, the amount of precise information available concerning its feeding value and composition is very scanty. Since the work of Kinch (1884) done more than 60 years ago, and involving no more than a single analysis, very little attention has been given to this plant. Evans (1927) studied Molinia as a component of bog hay, and found it to be a very good source of protein, but to contain less ash than certain other moorland species, e.g. common bent, rushes, and sheep's fescue.

1. Experiments are described in which the riboflavin contents of the liver, kidney, heart and leg muscles of chicks were assayed during the first few weeks after hatching, using birds reared on both riboflavin-deficient and riboflavin-adequate diets.

2. Changes in the composition of the liver during the first 3 weeks after hatching have been studied.

3. At hatching, half the chick's liver consists of oil; this proportion is maintained during the first week, but falls to about one-eighth during the second week and maintains this level during the third week.

4. When birds are reared on a riboflavin-deficient diet, the riboflavin concentrations of the heart and kidney are reduced more rapidly than that of the leg muscles.

1. The compositions of unthreshed and threshed Northern Irish ryegrass hay as saved for seed are given and compared with published values for firstyear seeds hay low in clover and average first-year seeds hay.

2. The results of digestibility trials with samples of unthreshed and threshed ryegrass and crested dogstail hays as saved for seed are reported. It is suggested that perennial ryegrass hay as saved for seed (unthreshed) may have a starch equivalent in the neighbourhood of 23% less than that of average first-year seeds hay low in clover, and that threshed hay may have a starch equivalent of the order of 15% less than that of the unthreshed hay. There are good grounds, therefore, for the poor reputation of threshed hay among stock feeders.