■}    Work  in  an  English  Herb  Garden.  489 
December   0.36  per  cent.  Sparteine  Sulphate 
January    0.36  per  cent.  Sparteine  Sulphate 
February    0.38  per  cent.  Sparteine  Sulphate 
March    0.53  per  cent.  Sparteine  Sulphate 
April    0.44  per  cent.  Sparteine  Sulphate 
July   0.23  per  cent.  Sparteine  Sulphate 
Chevalier,  who,  since  the  publication  of  these  results,  has  con- 
firmed them,  has  suggested  (Compt.  Rend.,  1910,  150,  1068)  that 
Fig.  1. 
Hoeing  Belladonna.    Wellcome  Materia  Medica  Farm. 
the  change  is  due  to  the  alkaloid  wandering  into  the  fruit.  Since 
the  weight  of  fruit  is  so  small  in  relation  to  the  weight  of  stem 
and  leaf  and  the  percentage  of  sparteine  found  in  it  is  only  about 
twice  that  lost  by  the  stem,  this  explanation  does  not,  however,  ac- 
count for  the  whole  of  the  alkaloid  lost. 
Digitalis  is  a  biennial  plant  and  it  is  usual  only  to  employ  in 
pharmacy  leaves  gathered  from  it  in  the  second  year  of  growth  as 
directed  by  most  pharmacopoeias  ;  moreover,  it  is  commonly  supposed 
