NOTES AND ABSTRACTS. 



843 



Pulp. — This is used as a stock food, but not unless mixed with 

 hay cake, &c. As a manure it has a shght value, and for paper-making 

 it is not successful, the percentage of fibre being too low. 



Waste Molasses. — Valuable as a stock food (in limited quantities), 

 as a manure, for the manufacture of alcohol, and, it is hoped, as an 

 ingredient in the composition of blocks for street paving. 



Lime Cake. — Valuable as a fertilizer, and it is used in Germany in 

 cement manufacture. — E. A. Bd. 



Sug-ar Beet : Comparative Tests of Varieties. By J. E. W. 



Tracy and J. F. Eeed (U.S.A. Dep. Agr., Bur. PL Ind., Circ. 37, 

 Sept. 1909). — Contains diagrams and tables giving the results of a 

 series of tests as to the sugar-content of a number of varieties of sugar- 

 beet, the seed being procured from several seed-growers both in 

 America and in Europe, and raised at the experimental stations of the 

 Department under conditions as uniform as possible. The standard 

 of measurement used was the gross amount of sugar produced from an 

 acre, as represented by the yield of roots multiphed by the sugar-content. 



Tables showing the comparative yields of roots and of sugar sepa- 

 rately are not included, but the figures are given. — M. L. H. 



Sulphate of Iron Retarding- Growth. By F. de Castella {Jour. 



Agr. Vict. September 1910, p. 598). — It has been noticed that on 

 vines the acid sulphate of iron treatment against black spot delays the 

 starting of the buds in spring, and its application has thus a dual 

 effect.— C. H. H. 



Sweet Corn, Influence of Environment on Composition of. 



By M. N. Straughn and 0. G. Church [U.S.A. Dep. Agr., Bur. Chem., 

 Bull. 127, Nov. 1909). — The sugar-content of sweet Indian corn 

 rapidly diminishes after the ear is separated from the stalk, this dimi- 

 nution being more rapid, other things being equal, w^ith a high than 

 with a low temperature. The sugar-content of Indian corn does not 

 seem to be highest in a low temperature as with the sugar-beet, since 

 a higher average sugar-content was found in South Carolina and Florida 

 than in Connecticut or Maine. On the other hand, the corn grown in 

 the North was more tender and edible for'a longer period than any grown 

 in the South. 



Of all the factors of environment which affect the edible quality 

 of Indian corn, the amount and distribution of the rainfall appears to 

 be the most important. 



Indian corn is valuable in proportion to its succulence, tenderness,' 

 and sweetness, and these were the qualities investigated in the speci- 

 mens considered. Parcels of two varieties of seed were sent to various' 

 experiment stations, principally on the Atlantic coast from Maine to 

 Florida, and were grown in circumstances as nearly identical as local 

 conditions allowed. Chemical analyses were made each year of the 

 ripe corn and compared with the meteorological and other data daily 

 collected during its growth, and the compared results are here shown 

 by means of diagrams and tables. So many influences and circum- 



