December 16, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



611 



ing sodium chloride and calcium carbonate. Our 

 results to date show rather remarkable responses to 

 small amounts of calcium chloride, even as low as 

 0.6 of a gram to a kilogram of ration proves to be 

 as effective as any of the higher additions of this 

 salt. At this time, however, our experiments have 

 mot been in progress long enough to permit any 

 definite conclusions, but they are being continued 

 and will be reported later. 



Sugar beets in Louisiana: C. E. Coates and A. 

 F. Kidder. A long series of results show that it 

 is possible to grow sugar beets of high sucrose and 

 high purity in Louisiana and to obtain heavy yields. 

 This is probably true for the South in general. The 

 best results are obtained by lat-e spring planting. 

 The yields average 18 tons per acre; the purities 

 about 85.0 and the sucrose 14.0. The essential 

 feature is the necessity for obtaining good beet seed 

 which breed true to type. Seed grown in the United 

 States today fulfill these requirements. 



Causes of hominy blacTc. Edward F. Kohman. 



The volatile acids and the volatile oxidizaMe sub- 

 stances of cream and experimental butter: L. W. 

 Ferris. In collaboration with Dr. H. W. Redfield 

 AND W. E. North. There has been found a notice- 

 able difference between the amount of volatile acids 

 found by distillation without saponification in but- 

 ter made from sweet cream and the amount found 

 in butter made from sour cream, the acidity of 

 which had been reduced before pasteurization. The 

 amount of volatile oxldizable substances was high 

 and the lactose very low on the samples of butter 

 made from cream which contained the higher num- 

 bers of lactose-splitting yeasts. 



Some determinations on the soluble nitrogen com- 

 pounds of cream and butter: L. W. Ferris. The 

 paper gives some of the results obtained in connec- 

 tion with an investigation of cream and butter con- 

 ducted by Dr. H. W. Eedfield and continued by the 

 author. The report shows the relation of amino 

 nitrogen and ammonia to total nitrogen and the 

 relation of the nitrogen not precipitated by phos- 

 photungstic acid to total nitrogen in cream and in 

 butter when fresh and after being held under dif- 

 ferent conditions of storage. The greatest per cent, 

 of such nitrogen, when the butter was fresh, and 

 also the greatest increase during storage, was found 

 in butter made from cream which had been allowed 

 to sour before being pasteurized. 



A method for the determination of amino nitro- 

 gen and ammonia in cream and butter: L. W. 

 Ferris. Picric acid and acetic acid are used to sep- 

 arate the protein and higher complex substances 



in which 



from the lower degradation products. The amount 

 of nitrogen in the filtrate reacting with nitrous 

 acid in Van Slyke 's amino acid apparatus is deter- 

 mined. The filtrate can be held for some time with- 

 out change in the amount of reacting nitrogen, and 

 hydrolysis of the proteins during analysis is re- 

 duced to a minimum. It is found that there is a 

 correlation between the ratio of the amino and 

 ■ammonia nitrogen to the total nitrogen, and the 

 quality of the sample. 



The viscosity of natural and " remade milk." 

 Food control laboratory : Oscar L. Evenson and 

 Leslie W. Ferris. The relation of viscosity to 

 total solids is shown by means of the expression: 

 v — 1 

 T. S. 



.^_ Time of flow of milk X sp. gr. of milk 

 Time of flow of water X sp. gr. of water 

 T. S. equals total solids. For a given number of 

 samples, the values for {v — 1)/T. S. for natural 

 milk varies from 5.68 to 7.18 and for remade milk 

 from 6.37 to 12.60 at 25° 0. The viscosity of milk 

 as determined is, to a certain extent, dependent 

 upon the temperature at which the milk has been 

 held. Homogenizing at a high pressure increases 

 the viscosity while emulsifying has little or no 

 effect. 



Composition basis for considering the ivaier re- 

 quirements of plants: H. A. Notes. Higher mois- 

 ture contents in orchard soils were found to occur 

 on those plot-s where increased bacterial activities 

 resulting from aeration of the soil had increased 

 plant growth and markedly changed the analyses of 

 the plants. As the result of the field work, given 

 above, controlled greenhouse investigations were 

 undertaken with different fertilizer treatments to 

 study variations in analysis as related to changes 

 in the water requirement of plants. In one set of 

 experiments the water requirement (per unit of dry 

 matter) decreased from 1,785 to 1,215 with a varia- 

 tion of 15 per cent, in the nitrogen content and 23 

 per cent, in the ash content of plants grown under 

 different fertilizer treatments. A second set of ex- 

 periments on a different soil and with a different 

 crop showed a variation in water requirement of 

 from 37.9 to 16.1 (per unit green weight) with a 

 variation of 74 per cent, nitrogen content, 176 per 

 cent, in phosphorus content of ash and 66 per 

 cent, in the ash content of plants grown under 

 different fertilizer treatments. The hypothesis 

 adopted on the basis of these results is that when a 

 soil that will respond to fertilizer treatment (direct 

 or indirect) is fertilized the plants growing in that 



