182 Kansas Academy of Science. 



come up after the cultivation of the potatoes had ceased. They 

 were therefore younger than those furnishing the former sam- 

 ple and had not withstood the dry summer. The ground was 

 soft; moisture seemed to be near the surface, and the plants 

 appeared to be fresh and healthy. They ranged in height 

 from 10 inches to 2V2 feet. The small plants had not yet 

 budded ; the older ones were beginning to fruit, but had not 

 passed the blossoming stage. About 50 pounds of herb were 

 collected and separated into two lots, one of young plants and 

 the other of mature plants. Each of these lots was divided 

 into two nearly equal parts. From one part of each lot the 

 leaves were removed from the stems before drying. The other 

 part of each lot was dried before removing the leaves. 



The drying was carried on in a warm room at a tempera- 

 ture not much above 30° C. The ash determinations were 

 made on the air-dry sample as well as the alkaloidal assays, 

 but both results were calculated to a moisture-free basis. The 

 leaves from the older plants lost 85.5 percent and those from 

 the younger plants 88 percent on total drying. The assays did 

 not indicate any difference in the alkaloid contents of the 

 leaves that were separated from the stems before drying and 

 those that were not. 



The leaves from the small plants contained 0.446 percent of 

 alkaloids and 19.8 percent of ash. The stems from the small 

 plants assayed 0.300 percent of alkaloids. The leaves from 

 the older plants assayed 0.377 percent of alkaloids and con- 

 tained 17.7 percent of ash. The stems from the older plants 

 contained 0.080 percent of alkaloids and 7.8 percent of ash. 



A part of the leaves in one of the lots from the older plants 

 was not turned often enough and began to mold. This part of 

 the drug was kept separate, and after drying was found to 

 contain 0.365 percent of alkaloids and 23.5 percent of ash. 

 This would seem to indicate that the alkaloid in the leaf was 

 quite as resistant to the action of fungus as the cellular tissue 

 of the leaf. 



These assays do not agree with those of Dr. A. R. L. Dohme, 

 who in 1893, when working with a sample grown in the vi- 

 cinity of Baltimore, Md., found that the stems contained a 

 larger percentage of alkaloids. (A. J. P., vol. 65, p. 479.) 



F. A. Miller and J. W. Meader, of the firm of Eli Lilly & Co., 

 of Indianapolis, in 1913 report (Jr. Ind. Eng. Chem. vol. 5, 



