New Yorx AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 165 
caused the complete rotting of a razor section from a turnip in 
ten minutes, whereas a like solution of the precipitate from a 
beef broth culture required nearly two hours. Thus the 
former scheme not only gave twice as much precipitate but a 
solution thereof twelve times as active as was a like solution 
of the latter. Another comparison was made by immersing 
the section directly in the living cultures, i. e., in the ex- 
pressed juice of decaying turnip and in beef broth cultures 
of the same age, viz., four days. Turnip sections so immersed 
were fully rotted in twenty-five minutes in the turnip juice, 
whereas fifty minutes was required to do this in the beef 
broth culture; in other words, the former was fully twice as 
active as was the latter. In other trials the difference was 
even more marked, the vegetable juice being three times as 
active as were the broth cultures. 
The precipitates from:the cooked vegetable broths, (a) and 
(b) of the fifth group have behaved about alike, indicating 
that the presence or absence of cell-wall substance has no 
effect on enzym production. Where a good growth has oc- 
curred, somewhat more precipitate was secured than from beef 
broth, which approximated but did not quite equal in weight 
that from the living tissues in enzymic activity. Since these 
were not secured and tested at the same time it is not possible 
to make exact comparisons. We have not, however, found 
these cooked vegetable media uniformly satisfactory. In some 
®We have had some puzzling experiences with such cooked vegetable 
broths, both of carrot and turnip. In our earlier trials (1900-01) they 
proved satisfactory media. In later ones (1902-03) they were unsatis- 
factory, this organism and various other soft-rot organisms failing to make 
strong growths in them. We have been forced to attribute this to the 
development of inhibiting poisonous compounds as a result of the cooking. 
It is known that cooking at high temperatures in the autclave may develop 
poisonous compounds in vegetable broths which will completely inhibit 
bacterial growths. Dr. F. G. Novy advises us that these are probably 
decomposition products of the carbohydrates. We have, therefore, never 
autoclaved such vegetable broths, but always sterilized by discontinuous 
cooking in the steamer. After experiencing the above troubles we tried 
cooking at still lower temperatures, in one case below 80% but the results 
were no more satisfactory. Thinking the difficulty might be in the glass- 
ware, we used very carefully cleaned Jena glass flasks but this seemed to 
make no difference. These differences are not associated with any marked 
loss of pathogenicity or other changes that we could detect in the organism 
and we were forced to attribute them to variations in the vegetable used. 
