ANALYSES OF THE ASH. 



29 



ANALYSES OF THE ASH. 



The ash analyses 65 were made not to determine the fertilizing value, 

 but rather to ascertain the presence or absence of any constituent 

 which might be used in identifying the fruit. For this reason only 

 the ash of the edible portion of the fruit itself was analyzed. The 

 main difficulty presented by this part of the work was that only an 

 extremely small sample was available for analysis, and, as it was 

 impossible to allow separate portions of the sample for the chlorin 

 and the carbon dioxid determinations, the latter was omitted. All 

 determinations were made by the official methods of the Association 

 of Official Agricultural Chemists. 



TABLE X. Analyses of the ash of the edible portion of the several fruits. 



a2.88 per cent sand. 



A study of Table X shows that the ashes of but few of the fruits are 

 characteristic. The citrus jruits contain somewhat large amounts of 

 lime and iron. Some analysts report as much as 25 per cent of lime, 

 working undoubtedly on the whole fruit. The ash of the tamarind 

 contains an extremely large amount of silica, of which not quite 3 per 

 cent is sand. Banana ashes are low in lime and magnesia and high in 



The work on the ash was done entirely by E. M. Chace. 



