586 
Economic  Botany. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
August,  1920. 
No  definite  information  can  be  obtained  regarding  the  possible 
formation  of  spicules  by  a  glass,  from  its  working  qualities  under 
the  flame.  In  the  experience  of  some  workers,  the  hard  glasses 
appear  to  suffer  surface  scaling  under  the  influence  of  the  moisture 
and  heat  used  in  autoclaving,  whereas  in  the  experience  of  others, 
the  more  easily  worked  and  more  soluble  glasses  yield  spicules  by 
surface  erosion  due  to  solution  of  the  alkaline  radicle  of  the  glass. 
Pharmaceutical  Research  Laboratory, 
H.  K.  MuLFORD  Company. 
ECONOMIC    BOTANY    AND    CHEMICAL  INDUSTRY.* 
By  J.  B.  Farmer. 
The  events  of  the  last  few  years  have  served  to  emphasize  the 
need  of  looking  more  fully  than  heretofore  into  the  best  means  of 
utilizing  vegetable  products  as  raw  materials  for  industry,  or  of 
investigating  their  amenability  to  chemical  treatment.  We  are 
mainly  dependent  upon  plants  for  the  great  sources  of  our  material 
wealth,  and,  indeed,  plants  (and  in  a  secondary  sense  animals  also) 
represent  the  main  real  revenue  of  the  world,  inasmuch  as  they  are 
practically  the  chief  storers  of  the  energy  that  reaches  us  from  the 
sun. 
Few  people  sufficiently  visualize  our  absolute  dependence  on 
the  plants  for  the  sheer  necessities  of  life,  or  realize  how  urgent  is 
the  demand  for  investigations  which  will  enable  us  not  only  to  in- 
crease our  wealth,  but  also  give  us  a  further  measure  of  control 
over  the  sources  of,  and  the  conditions  that  affect,  this  plant  rev- 
enue. The  need  for  such  investigation  begins  at  the  bottom.  We 
have  much  need  for  stocktaking.  At  home  there  is,  for  example, 
a  problem  why  some  grass  fields  will  fatten  stock,  and  others  not. 
Such  fields  are  known  in  most  grazing  districts,  but  no  really  satis- 
factory explanation  of  their  excellence  is  forthcoming.  Superficial 
reasons,  so-called,  are  common  enough,  but  the  fact  that  such  fields 
are  often  surrounded  by  others  apparently  similar  but  of  greatly 
inferior  value  should  give  pause  enough  to  those  who  are  ready  with 
facile  solutions  of  a  difficult  problem — or,  rather,  congeries  of  prob- 
lems. Indeed,  the  soil  and  the  grass  that  grows  on  it  still  constitute 
a  relatively  open  field  of  research.    Chemical  analyses  of  soil  go  a 
*From  Jour.  Soc.  Chem.  Industry,  May  15,  1920. 
