37 
fairly well established that with a higher per cent. of crude 
material available in the form of CO, in the air the plant can 
ditions of sunlight. Some recent work indicates that the plant 
is active in starch formation only in the earlier part of the day 
The limit to the more complete utilization of the inexhaustible 
supplies of CO, water and energy of the sunlight is practically set 
in many cases by the lack in the soil of other elements necessary 
to plant growth, such as nitrogen, potash, phosphorus, etc. 
The present average production of plant growth is estimated at 
214 tons per hectare. 
The attempt to replace the agency of the plant in the pro- 
duction of these important food stuffs has been a common prob- 
lem with the organic chemists. Sugars have been produced 
synthetically in the laboratory, but not at all on a commercial 
scale, and for this it is in a large degree a problem of finding a 
form of energy available for the production of the complex syn- 
theses involved which can compare in availability with the sun- 
light used by the plant. In saccharin, the chemist has produced 
a compound vastly more concentrated than the common sugars, 
but the physiologists have found it so deleterious that its use is 
forbidden by law. It is not likely that chemical methods will 
e able to surpass those of the farmer with the common crop 
plants, for the more fertile areas of the earth, but the chemist 
Ciamician at least dreams of the utilization of the sunlight of 
the great desert regions as a possible source of energy for the 
synthesis of the food products of the future 
R. A. Harper. 
ae a OF THE STAFF, SCHOLARS AND 
TU S OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL 
eae DURING THE YEAR 1913 
Andrews, A. L. Notes on bee American Sphagnum—lIv. 
Bryologist 16: 20-24. Mr 3:—V. Bryologist 16: 59-62. 
21 Au 1913;—VI. ee - 74-76. 22N 1913 
