158 
successful termination of the War a few months after the com- 
mencement of the enquiry made the food situation less critical 
and diminished the necessity for the enquiry, which was officially 
discontinued. Certain aspects of the results obtained have been 
dealt with elsewhere,* but in the course of the work some data 
were obtained which the late Professor Trail considered might 
be of interest to Botanists, and at his request the following note 
upon these was prepared. 
The enquiry began early in the Spring of 1918, and it was 
the intention to take samples of the rhizomes at intervals 
throughout the year to ascertain the variation which took place 
in their composition with the season, and the best time of 
harvesting them from the food or starch-production point of 
view. Among others, samples were taken from two spots in 
Craibstone, the experimental farm of the College of the North 
of Scotland College of Agriculture. These two places are both 
in rough woodland and are within half a mile of one another. 
The first samples were taken at the beginning of April, and 
when they were analysed, it was found, that though the per- 
centages of moisture and dry matter respectively were almost 
identical in the two, the percentage of nitrogen differed so. 
seriously that at first it was supposed some mistake had been 
made. A repetition of the determination, however, showed that 
there really was a very great difference in the nitrogen content. 
The sample “ A,” taken on April Ist from the West woods had 
less than half the percentage of nitrogen contained in the sample 
‘B,” taken from the woods between Blue Breeks field and the 
Chapel Park (see Table I.), while on the other hand the per- 
centage of rot Carbohydrates in “A,” was considerably 
greater than that in “ B.” 
The analyses were made by the ordinary conventional methods 
used for feeding stuffs. The really significant determination is 
that of nitrogen, and “Albuminoids ” are merely conventionally 
determined by multiplying nitrogen by 6}. As the Soluble 
Carbohydrates are determined by difference they are necessarily 
_ less in sample “ B ”’ than in sample ‘ A.” 
The next samples, A.2 and B.2, were drawn two months later, 
on the 7th June, when the fronds had developed considerably, 
and thereafter samples were taken at intervals of a month, or a 
little more, till March 1919. In all, 10 samples were drawn 
from each place, and the results of the analyses of these are given 
in Table 
The samples are numbered in the Table, and the dates on 
which the samples were taken were as follows :—No. 3 0 
July 18th, No. 4 on August 2lst, No. 5 on September 25th, 
No. 6 on October 28th, No. 7 on November 30th, No. 8 on 
December 27th; all in 1918; No. 9 on February 4th and No. 10 
on March 8th in 1919. In all cases the A. and B. samples were 
collected on the same date. 
* “ Bracken Rhizomes and their Food Value,’ Trans. Hi 
Agricultural Society of Scotland, 1919, xxxi., 5th series, pp. 227-236. ° 
