lii 
Monthly Council , April 4, 1894. 
10. It can hardly be contended that there 
is any advantage in the actual details of 
analysis being performed at Hanover Square, 
partly under Dr. Voelcker’s personal super- 
vision and partly under that of an assistant, 
over their being performed always under Dr. 
Voelcker’s eye at a laboratory elsewhere. 
Nor does there appear any more reason why 
Dr. Voelcker should give daily attendance 
at the Society’s own offices than that the 
other Consulting Officers should do so. Dr. 
Voelcker’s official correspondence might be 
dated from the Society’s offices ; he would 
attend there whenever required, by appoint- 
ment, and at all the meetings of the Chemical 
Committee. 
11. Should any very large decrease take 
place in the number of samples sent to the 
Society, the general question of the Chemical 
Department must of course be reconsidered, 
but it appears to the Committee to be desir- 
able that a considerable portion of the time 
of a skilled analyst should be always at the 
disposal of the Society, and, if his time be 
not occupied with individual analyses for 
members, it should be devoted to research. 
The experiments which the Society is con- 
ducting at Woburn deserve more attention 
from a chemical-research point of view than 
Dr. Voelcker has, with the many calls upon 
his time, and with a limited staff, been here- 
tofore able to devote to them ; and the 
Committee think that the money which it 
has been hitherto necessary to expend in 
maintaining a separate establishment, with 
its attendant charges, and which will be 
saved under the proposed new arrangement, 
might with greater advantage to the general 
interests of the Society be employed by the 
engagement of a skilled assistant (at a re- 
muneration of some£150 per annum) whose 
time should be wholly devoted to special 
work and researches, and who should not be 
employed in routine work at all. 
12. If these proposals be accepted by the 
Council, the Committee suggest that, as 
from June 30 next, the allowance of £550 a 
year contemplated by Sir John Thorold’s 
Committee of 1888 as the amount chargeable 
for assistance in the Chemical Department 
should be paid direct to Dr. Voelcker, in 
addition to his salary, on the understanding 
that for this amount he will defray all ex- 
penses for assistants, chemicals, and the 
like, necessary for the analyses required by 
members of the Society, and that he will, 
out of this sum, set apart £150 per annum 
for the remuneration of a skilled assistant to 
be engaged solely in research and special 
work for the Society. 
13. Adding £50 for printing and incidental 
expenses, to be defrayed by the Society, the 
gross cost of the Chemical Department 
would amount to £1,300 annually, against 
which would rank all the fees received by 
the Society for the analyses (average £700 
per annum), leaving the net charge of the 
Chemical Department in all its branches at 
£600 a year, the figure reported to Sir John 
Thorold’s Committee in 1888. 
(Signed) Emlyn, Chairman. 
April 3, 1894. 
This report was adopted, and the 
details as to the transference of the 
Laboratory were left in the hands of 
the Chairman for settlement. 
Woburn Sheep-feeding Experiments. 
Viscount Emlyn also reported that 
the Chemical Committee had received 
from the Woburn Sub-Committee a 
report by Dr. Voelcker as to the 
results of the sheep-feeding experi- 
ments conducted during the past 
winter. The detailed account of the 
experiments would be published in 
the Journal, but the following sum- 
mary of them would be of interest : — 
In consequence of short crops of roots and 
hay in 1893, it was considered desirable to 
institute experiments to ascertain how 
economy in the use of these foods could be 
pursued, and, chiefly, whether by feeding 
sheep on roots, with larger supplies of cake 
and corn, they could be profitably got fit for 
the butcher earlier with economy of roots, 
and also whether hay chaff asadditional food 
could bo well dispensed with. 
Three pens, each containing twenty sheep, 
were put on roots on November 30, 1893. 
The original cost per head of the sheep 
was 37 s. 
Pen I. was fed with linseed cake and barley 
in equal proportions, up to 2 lb. per head 
daily of the mixture ; Pen II. with the same 
food but up to 1 lb. only per head daily of 
the mixture; while Pen III. had the same 
quantity as Pen II., but with J lb. of hay 
chaff in addition. 
Pen I. was fit for the butcher in eighty 
days ; the cost of the feeding, including roots, 
was 8s. 11 d. per head, and the price realised 
was 48s. each, showing a net profit of 2s. Id. 
per head. 
Pens II. and III. were ready for killing 
after 108 days, or twenty-eight days later 
than Pen I. 
In Pen II. the cost of food was 9s. 7<f. per 
head, the price realised 50s. 4d. each, and the 
net gain 3s. 9d. per head. In Pen III. the 
cost of food was 10s. lid. per head, the price 
realised 52s. 6 d. each, and the net gain per 
head 4s. 7 d. 
These results show — 
1. That no economy results from feeding 
with a large quantity of cake and meal for a 
shorter period, as compared with steady 
ordinary feeding for a longer period. 
2. That the addition to the diet of a small 
quantity of hay chaff is attended with profit. 
Botanical and Zoological. 
Mr. Arkwright reported that a 
note had been read from Dr. Voelcker 
as to certain analyses of soils which 
he had made in connexion with the 
inquiry into finger-and-toe in turnips. 
The Committee recommended that 
Dr. Voelcker be requested to prepare 
a report for an early number of the 
Journal, giving a digest of the infor- 
mation contained in the replies to the 
Society’s circular letter of questions, 
and the results of the analyses of soils 
which he had made (see page 318). 
