8o 
LON A. HAWKINS 
of Cooley (3) who found that oxalic acid was formed when this fungus 
was grown upon peach-juice. Behrens (i), on the other hand, found 
in his work with apples that the acid content of the rotten half of the 
apple was considerably less than that of the sound portion. In this 
case the fungus apparently used the acid. 
The percentage of alcohol-insoluble substance which reduces Feh- 
ling's solution when hydrolyzed with dilute hydrochloric acid was 
somewhat less in all the rotten samples than in the corresponding sound 
halves. It is, therefore, to be concluded that the action of the fungus 
tends to decrease the amount of this substance in the peach, although 
the variation between the sound and rotten halves of the same peach 
is occasionally less than that found between the two halves of a sound 
peach, as shown in Table I, columns 6 and 7. The substance may be 
utilized by the fungus or changed so that it is soluble in alcohol. In 
the latter case it would have been extracted with the filtrate used in 
the determination of the sugars. 
In sugar content the sound and rotten halves of the peaches varied 
considerably. There was more reducing sugar in the rotten halves 
than in the corresponding sound portions, while in the total sugar 
content the order was reversed. There was very little cane-sugar in 
the rotten portions, much less than in the sound sample?. The fungus 
then uses the sugar and causes the inversion of the sucrose. That the 
sucrose is inverted much more rapidly than the invert sugar is used by 
the fungus is evident from the fact that the reducing sugar content is 
higher in the rotten samples. This is especially evident in the case of 
the peaches rotted after they had become infected under orchard con- 
ditions in which only a small amount of the sugar had been used yet 
nearly all the cane-sugar had been inverted. Behrens (i) found that 
Sclerotinia fructigena used the sugar in apples; he, however, measured 
only the total sugars. 
In conclusion, it may be said that in peaches rotted by the brown- 
rot fungus, Sclerotinia cinerea, the pentosan content remains prac- 
tically the same, the acid content is increased, the amount of alcohol- 
insoluble substance which reduces Fehling's solution when hydrolyzed 
with dilute hydrochloric acid decreases, the total sugar content de- 
creases, while the cane-sugar practically disappears. 
LITERATURE CITED 
I. Behrens, J. Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Obstfaulnis. Centralbl. Bakter. Parasite 
4: 700-706. 1898. 
