124 abstracts: chemistry 



sperm into the plantlet was determined. The most noticeable feature 

 of this movement was the action of the potassium. When the seedling 

 was only two days old and weighed only about 6 per cent as much as the 

 whole seed, it had absorbed about 50 per cent of the potash of the orig- 

 inal seed as compared with 25 per cent of the nitrogen and 17 per cent 

 of the phosphoric acid. Practically all of the salts were found to be 

 absorbed at the end of the seventeenth day. Evidently there is no 

 exchange of fat from the bran and endosperm into the plantlet. The 

 amount of sugar both in the plantlet and in the residual seed reaches 

 a maximum at about the seventh day and decreases rapidly from that 

 time until the seventeenth day when the experiments were discontinued. 

 The pentosans increased steadily throughout this period. 



The effect of an outside application of plant food was tried with little 

 effect. The plants were grown in nutrient solutions containing single 

 salts and salts in combination but no appreciable difference could be 

 detected in the movement of the plant foods from the endosperm and 

 bran into the embryo. J. A. B. 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY:— Methoxyl in soil organic matter. 

 E. C. Shorey and E. C. Lathrop. Journal of the American Chem- 

 ical Society, 33: 75-78. 1911. 



Methoxyl was found (by the Zeisel method) in small amounts in all 

 but 2 of 10 soils widely varying in type and in character of organic 

 matter. Its quantity bore no constant relation to, and is perhaps an 

 unimportant part of the total organic matter of, the soil. It is probably 

 derived from the decay of vegetable matter and its variation in soils of 

 the same type indicates some fundamental difference in the chemical, 

 physical, or biological factors that decide in what way a complex organic 

 compound shall break down or decay when added to a soil. E. C. L. 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.— Lawn soils. Oswald Schreiner 

 and J. S. Skinner. Bulletin Bureau of Soils, No. 75. 1911. 



In this bulletin is presented the character of soils in respect to their 

 mineral and organic materials, as well as the kind and amounts of dif- 

 ferent sized soil particles which determine the suitability of soils for 

 lawn-making. The texture of soils and the relation of surface soil to 

 subsoil receive consideration and the difference is pointed out between 

 land devoted to lawn culture and to a farm crop. The movement of 

 soil moisture, its dependence on texture, and its importance to the main- 



