octis. I92I Hydrocyanic Acid in Sudan Grass 127 



Table I. — Effect of maceration on liberation of hydrocyanic acid 



Sam- 

 ple 

 No. 



Treatment. 



HCN. 



No cutting or maceration 



Cut in feed cutter {}^ to ys inch) 



Cut and macerated slightly 



Cut and macerated thoroughly . . . 



Mgm. 



o 



10 



10 



II 



From this it appeared that if the time of digestion is sufficiently long 

 the amount of maceration is less important, provided, however, that the 

 plant tissue is cut fairly fine. The smaller amount obtained from the 

 grass on August 18, as compared with that obtained in June, is in accord 

 with a general observation made during the summer, that as the season 

 advanced smaller amounts were obtained from the 200-gm. portions. 



TIME REQUIRED FOR DIGESTION •tM,;;-n 



The time required for digestion in order to obtain the maximum amount 

 of hydrocyanic acid was determened. A sample collected on June 28 was 

 divided into three portions and similarly treated, except for the time 

 allowed for digestion. The results obtained are given in Table II. 



This experiment seemed to show that digesting 3 hours was not long 

 enough, while 6 hours was as effective as 24. On August 28 a similar 

 experiment gave the results shown in Table III, the results in each case 

 being an average of duplicate samples. 



Table III. — Effect of tim,e of digestion on liberation of hydrocyanic acid 



Sample 

 No. 



Treatment. 



HCN. 



Digested two days. . . 

 Digested three days . 

 Digested four days. . . 

 Digested seven days . 



Mgm. 



10 



10 



10 



O 



The portion digested seven days developed a very bad odor. Because of 

 these results, the usual procedure with experiments reported in this paper 

 was to macerate the sample and then digest at room temperature over- 

 night. 



