1898 | JULIUS VON SACHS 5 
cultures. A whole series of contributions, appearing for the 
most part in the Landw. Versuchs-Stat., bear eloquent testimony 
to his ceaseless activity during the comparatively short sojourn 
at Tharand. 
Early in 1861 Sachs was elected head of the newly created 
experiment station for plant physiology and docent in plant and 
animal physiology at Chemnitz, but before he entered definitely 
upon his duties there, he accepted a call, received in April of 
the same year, toa professorship in the agricultural academy at 
Poppelsdorf. Here, at first, he had charge of both plant and 
animal physiology and mineralogy. 
At Poppelsdorf Sachs married an Austrian lady, a talented 
woman, whose limited income enabled the maintenance of 
avery modest establishment. At this time Sachs’ salary was 
but 700 thalers. 
The laboratories of the investigator were at this time as 
modest and limited as his domestic establishment. Two very 
small rooms, and an apartment in the basement, which also 
served the housemaster for a kitchen, formed the ‘ institute’’ in 
which Sachs and his students worked. With them were associ- 
ated G. Kraus, now professor at Halle, and the honored Dr. 
Thiel,3 who is still Ministerial-director of the scientific study of 
agriculture. 
The six years of Sachs’ activity at Poppelsdorf were extraor- 
dinarily rich in scientific results. Fifteen important contribu- 
tions upon the germination process, upon metabolism and the 
translocation of food material, upon the influence of light and 
temperature changes upon particular phases of vegetation, 
appeared in the years 1862-1864 alone. His work at this time 
upon the metamorphosis of food material during the germina- 
tion and early growth of plants demonstrated the easy control 
of the method of transforming glucose into starch and the 
reverse, the transformation from carbohydrates into fats, albu- 
3In simple but telling words, full of sincere feeling, this old and true friend of 
Sachs, at the semi-centennial jubilee of the Academy, told of all those old homely 
conditions which surrounded the epoch making work of the dead investigator. 
