INTRODUCTION 



BY FRED W. MORSE 



In 1894 and again in 1897 there were received at the Experiment 

 Station, portions of the stomachs of cattle that were supposed to have 

 died of poison in some form. As is apt to be the fact, too small quan- 

 tities were sent to allow an exhaustive examination. No metallic 

 poisons were found, and therefore from the symptoms preceding 

 death, together with the statements that the animals had had access to 

 wild cherry leaves, in the former case after the shrubs had been mowed 

 and in the latter by browsing, it was thought that prussic acid in the 

 leaves was the cause of death. 



Since the diiferent species of wild cherry are numerous beside walls 

 and roads, it was deemed advisable to determine the amount of prussic 

 acid that could be extracted from the leaves and calculate the probable 

 quantity of them, which would be fatal to cows. Mr. Howard was 

 assigned the work of collecting and analyzing specimens, the results of 

 which, reported by him in the following pages, give only a partial idea 

 of the number of analyses made while determining the variations in 

 quantity of acid due to modifications of method (distillation) and those 

 due to different samples of leaves. 



