19191 NOTES. 799 



Association of Official Agricultural Chemists. — The thirty-sixth annual 

 convention of the association was liekl November 17-19, 1919, at Washington, 

 D. C. The registration of 264 was soniewliat smaller than at tlie previous meet- 

 ing in 1917, but unusual interest was sliown in the reports and papers and the 

 attendance at the various sessions was very regular. 



The usual reports of the referees and associate referees were read and dis- 

 cussed. Particular interest was manifested in the report of the sugar referee, 

 A. H. Bryan, and accompanying papers on The Double Polarization Method for 

 the Estimation of Sucrose and the Evaluation of the Clerget Divisor, by R. F. 

 Jackson and C. L. Gillis, and The Attitude of the New York Sugar Trade 

 toward the new U. S. Bureau of Standards Value for Standardizing Sacchari- 

 meters, by C. A. Browne. Prolonged discussion of the question of the Bris and 

 Beaume scales and of the standardization of quartz plate saccharimeters re- 

 sulted in the appointment of two committees, the first to report later in the 

 session on the Beaume scale and the other to investigate qxiartz plate polariza- 

 tion during the coming year. Subsequently a resolution was adopted prescrib- 

 ing the Beaumg scale of the Bureau of Standards (Modulus 14.5), as given in 

 Table 31, Circular 44, U. S. Bureau of Standards, as the official Beaume scale of 

 the association, and eliminating all Beaumg tables and references thereto not 

 in accordance with this scale. 



Supplementing the regular reports of the other referees the following papers 

 were presented : The Determination of Water in Cereals and Meat Products, 

 by F. C. Cook ; Commercial Feeding Stuffs, by A. McGill ; The Determination 

 of Small Amounts of Chlorids in Chemical Reagents, by W". Heath ; The Effect 

 of Maniire-Sulphur Composts on the Solubility of the Potassium of Greensand, 

 by A. G. McCall ; A Comparison of the Results obtained by the De Roode, 

 Official Lindo-Gladding. and ^Modified Lindo-Gladding Methods for the Deter- 

 mination of Potash in Mixed Fertilizers, by E. R. Tobey ; The Solubility of Cal- 

 cium and Magnesium Arsenates in Carbon Dioxid and its Relation to Foliage 

 Injury, by A. J. Patten ; The Determination of Water-soluble Arsenic Oxid 

 in Calcium Arsenate, by J. J. T. Graham; Ripe Olives, by C Thorn; Some 

 Biochemical Characteristics of a Spinach Disease, by S. L. .Todidi ; Physico- 

 chemical Methods for Determining the Grade of Flour, by C. H. Bailey; An 

 Error in Gravimetric Vanillin Determinations in Vanilla Extracts, by H. J. 

 Wichmann; The Cryoscopic (Freezing point) Method of Determining Per- 

 centages of Added Water in Milk, by J. Hortvet ; and A Method for the Determi- 

 nation of Borax in Fertilizer Materials, by G. F. Lipscomb and C. F. Inman. 



In the absence of C. S. Hudson and S. F. Sherwood, who were to have pre- 

 sented a paper on The Occurrence of Melezitose in Honey-Dew Honeys, a re- 

 port on the subject was made by E. T. Wherry. Supplementing the report of 

 the referee on Coffee, F. B. Power gave a brief report on An Improved Method 

 for the Quantitative Determination of Caffein in Vegetable Materials. This 

 method, which has been published (E. S. R., 41, p. 412), was adopted by the 

 association as a tentative method to be studied in connection with the present 

 Official Methods. 



Following the usual custom, a part of the second morning's session was 

 devoted to addresses by the retiring president of the association, Dr. P. F. 

 Trowbridge, and by the honorary president, Dr. H. W. Wiley. The former 

 selected as his general subject The Meat Problem, and presented an urgent 

 plea for the greater conservation of world foodstuffs in the fattening of 

 animals for the market. The waste of food materials suitable for human 

 consumption brought about by the common practice of hogging-down corn was 

 convincingly pointed out in statistics obtained in experiments conducted by the 

 author at the North Dakota Station. Incidentally a plea was made for the 

 more extensive use of horse flesh in place of beef. 



