Annual  Report  for  1909  of  the  Consulting  Chemist.  341 
formation  and  use  only,  circulars  setting  out  the  principal 
cases  which  had  been  brought  to  their  notice.  Three  such 
circulars  have  been  issued  during  the  year,  and  it  is  clear 
that,  from  the  interest  aroused  by  them,  they  have  been 
productive  of  much  good,  and  have  kept  the  Members  of  the 
Society  acquainted  with  what  is  going  on,  and  warned  as  to 
what  to  avoid.  It  is  intended  to  continue  the  practice  of 
issuing  these  circulars  as  occasion  presents. 
Of  new  materials  the  one  that  has  come  most  prominently 
into  use  is  Soya  bean  cake,  and  this  bids  fair  to  largely  take 
the  place  of  other  feeding  materials,  the  price  of  which  has 
been  lately  enhanced  by  trade  conditions.  Among  fertilisers 
there  has  been  hardly  anything  new  ; for  it  cannot  be  said 
that  calcium  cyanamide  and  calcium  nitrate  have  as  yet  found 
their  way  into  regular  supply  in  this  country,  or  been  adopted 
by  the  ordinary  farmer ’in  the  way  that  he  uses  sulphate  of 
ammonia  or  nitrate  of  soda.  That  there  is,  however,  a future 
for  both  these  materials — made  by  the  utilisation  of  the 
nitrogen  of  the  atmosphere,  and  hence  from  a practically 
inexhaustible  source — -must  be  clearly  borne  in  mind. 
Experiments  carried  out  during  the  present  season  at  the 
Woburn  Experimental  Farm  and  elsewhere  have  proved 
the  practical  utility  of  these  ; and  that,  speaking  broadly, 
the  nitrogen  contained  in  them  is  just  as  efficacious  as  it  is 
in  the  better  known  forms  of  sulphate  of  ammonia  and  nitrate 
of  soda.  The  whole  question  of  their  employment  turns,  as 
I have  before  pointed  out,  on  the  price  at  which  the  unit  of 
nitrogen  is  procurable  in  them  as  compared  with  the  better- 
known  salts.  Up  to  the  present  the  prices  of  the  two  new 
materials  have  been  regulated  entirely  by  the  corresponding 
prices  of  their  older . competitors,  and  one  probably  does  not 
know  yet  what  it  really  costs  to  produce  them  in  merchantable 
quantities,  and  consequently  at  what  price  they  can  eventually 
be  offered.  I have  little  doubt,  however,  from  my  practical 
experience  with  them  in  the  field,  that  as  soon  as  it  can  be 
shown  to  the  farmer  that  he  can  buy  his  nitrogen  in  these 
forms-  more  advantageously  than  he  can  in  the  form  of  sulphate 
of  ammonia  or  nitrate  of  soda,  he  will  not  be  slow  to  avail  himself 
of  them.  Until  then,  however,  he  is  wise  to  stay  his  hand. 
I now  put  forward,  as  usual,  the  details  of  matters  which 
have  been  brought  before  me  in  the  examination  of  samples 
submitted  by  Members  daring  the  year  ; — 
A.  Feeding  Stuffs. 
1.  Linseed  Cake. 
The.  price  of  linseed  cake  has  risen  very  considerably, 
Thereby  causing  it  to  . be.  to  some  extent  less  used,  and  to  be 
