I. AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 357 



I. AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



ENDOWMENT OF LAWES's EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 



Mr. John B. Lawes, of Rothamsted, in England, well known 

 for his many investigations, in connection with Gilbert, upon 

 the physiology of plants, and other scientific questions con- 

 nected with agriculture, has announced his intention of plac- 

 ing in trust his laboratory and experimental farm, with an en- 

 dowment of half a million dollars, the interest of which, after 

 his death, is to be expended in carrying on the researches 

 that have rendered his name so famous. This act of prince- 

 ly liberality on his part will doubtless bear ample fruit in the 

 future, as his own labors have done in the past. 12 A, June 

 6,1872,110. 



RELATION OF SUN SPOTS TO THE WINE-CROP. 



Mr. Schuster, of Manchester, calls attention, in Nature, to 

 the apparent connection between the sun spots and certain 

 terrestrial phenomena, and remarks upon the close coincidence 

 of the years in which the wine-crop of Germany was unusu- 

 ally good with those in which there w r as a minimum of the 

 sun spots. 12 A, April 25,1872,501. 



THE SPECTROSCOPE IN TESTING THE PURITY OF WINES. 



Among those who have made a practical application of 

 the spectroscope to various purposes in domestic economy 

 and the arts is Mr. J. C. Sorby, of England. He uses as a 

 scale an interference spectrum with dark lines, by means of 

 which the spectrum is divided into twelve optically equiva- 

 lent sections. "With this instrument he has lately investigated 

 the coloring matters of Brazil-wood and of logwood in wine, 

 first shaking the latter with ether, and then evaporating the 

 etherial solution obtained, treating the residuum with water, 

 displacing this with carbonate of ammonia, and then testing 

 the solution with the spectrum microscope. The question 

 of a mixture of the coloring matter of the ratany-root or of 

 the poke-berry (Phytolacca decandrci) is determined after the 

 wine has been reduced to a smaller volume by evaporation, 



