88 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
and a proteolytic enzyme was demonstrated to be present, in 
digestive experiments conducted by Mr. Bosworth. In this 
way it was shown that this fungus could not only construct 
proteid from inorganic compounds of nitrogen but would pro- 
duce proteolytic enzymes in such a solution. Enzyme studies 
were not made for the other species used in this experiment. 
CASHIN. 
For a medium at the opposite extreme, the chemists prepared . 
pure casein. This was weighed into two gram lots moistened, 
sterilized in the autoclave and inoculated with five species of 
mold. All grew and fruited luxuriantly. This experiment 
showed only that the species used were able to break down 
casein and to grow normally upon the products ‘of this diges- 
tion without the addition of other nutrients. 
STERILE MILK AND CURD. 
Sterilized milk and sterilzed curd offer a substratum related 
to cheese. Sterilized milk in quantities varying from forty _ 
cubic centimeters to one hundred and fifty cubic centimeters in 
test-tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks has often been used. Nearly 
all species of Penicillium grow luxuriantly forming a felted 
mass of mycelium often two to four millimeters in thickness — 
upon the surface of the milk. With the absorption of the milk 
in such cultures of the Camembert and Roquefort species the 
mass of mycelium buckles and bends, tubercles of mycelium 
arise on the under side of the mass and grow downward keep- 
ing the mold in connection with the fluid. In this way a cul- 
ture may continue to grow for several months until it forms 
tough, irregular masses of felted hyphae, filling the test-tube 
for an inch or more downward from the original surface of the 
milk. The milk below the colony soon becomes transparent 
giving reactions for digestion, with a residue of curd at the 
bottom, which in the course of time may be almost completely 
dissolved. With the Oidium lactis on the contrary the colonies 
largely sink below the surface so that the milk may be quite 
well filled with mycelium upon which chains of spores are only 
produced in quantity at or just below the surface. Similar ex- 
periments with 100 grams of sterilized curd in flasks, inocu- 
lated with the Camembert and Roquefort molds have shown 

