252 abstracts: biological chemistry 



238 of the Bureau of Plant Industry. The determinations show that 

 the oxidase content of the leaves is abnormally high wherever the growth 

 of the plants has been retarded, whether such retardation of growth is 

 due to the curly-top disease, to excessive watering, to drought, or to 

 unknown abnormal conditions of plant growth. Studies made on the 

 distribution of the oxidases of different parts of the plant show that the 

 seeds are highest in oxidase content, the leaves follow, the roots are almost 

 as active as the leaves, while the stems show a lesser activity. 



Determinations of moisture, total nitrogen, ash, and sugar in the alco- 

 hol-soluble and alcohol-insoluble fractions of the roots and leaves show 

 no differences between the healthy and diseased material. It is sugges- 

 ted that indications point toward the diseased plants being in a state 

 analagous to "fever." H. H. B. 



BIOLOGICAL CREMl^TRY.— Biochemical factors in soils. M. X. 



Sullivan. Bureau of Soils. Eighth International Congress of 



Applied Chemistry, 15: 305. 1912. 

 The soil possesses oxidizing and catalyzing powers which are stronger 

 in the more productive soils and are more manifest in soils than in 

 subsoils. There are evidences of enzyme action in soils but as yet no 

 good method has been obtained for extracting enzymes from soil. 

 Many of the substances found in soil undoubtedly arise to a consider- 

 able degree as a result of the metabolism of microorganisms. In mold 

 cultures have been found fatty acids, especially oleic and palmitic, 

 purine bases, such as guanine, adenine and hypoxathine, histidine and 

 probably thymine. In the solution in which molds have grown were 

 found fatty bodies, guanine, adenine, hypoxathine, histidine, and prob- 

 ably thymine. M. X. S. 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.— A^omaZ and abnormal constitu- 

 ents of soil organic matter. E. C. Lathrop. Eighth International 

 Congress of Applied Chemistry, 15; 147-151. 1912. 

 Pentosans, pentose sugars, histidine, xanthine, hypoxanthine, cyto- 

 sine and possibly creatinine may be considered, to be normal soil con- 

 stituents. Arginine and adenine on account of their infrequent occur- 

 rence and their rapid disappearance, and dihydroxystearic acid and 

 picoline carboxylic acid on account of their detrimental action on plant 

 growth, and the striking relation of the former to infertility, must be 

 classed as abnormal soil constituents. Regarding agroceric acid, lig- 

 noceric acid, paraffinic acid, and amono-hydroxystearic acid, agrosterol 

 and hentriacontane no statement is warranted. E. C. L. 



