BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 105 
Fresh June grass collected on June 10, at a moment when flowers were 
about to form. The leaves were 9 inches long and the stalks 18 inches. 
Leaves and stalks of the June grass of June 10, that were allowed to dry 
slowly during a fortnight. 
Fresh flower stalks and blossoms of sheep’s fescue grass (Festuca ovina) 
collected on June 20, 1904. The grass was nearly in full bloom and the 
flower stalks were about 12 inches high. On being tested with Fehling’s 
liquor, the percolate from this grass gave a strong reducing reaction, which 
went to show the presence of an appreciable quantity of sugar rather than of 
mannite. 
Rowen hay (June grass) that had been mown early in September, 1903, and 
allowed to dry for a month on a table. 
Leaves of timothy grass (Phieum pratense) plucked from the stalks of dead- 
ripe standing grass on July 22, 1904. 
The negative results obtained in so many of the tests with 
erasses could not fail to suggest qualms of doubt as to whether 
the mannite-copper precipitate suspended in water is always 
decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen so easily and completely 
as has been assumed. In order to test this point yet again a 
small quantity of pure mannite (0.25 grm.) was purposely mixed 
with a new portion of one of the specimens of June grass such as 
had given negative results as regards mannite when tested by 
itself in the normal way, and the processes of percolation, precipi- 
tation, etc., were carried forward in the sophisticated sample in 
the usual way with the result that the mannite that had been 
introduced was detected without any difficulty both in the form of - 
crystals of mannite and subsequently as crystals of mannose- 
hydrazone. The grass employed in this trial consisted of the 
leaves and stalks of June grass collected on June 10, 1904, 
that had been allowed to dry slowly for a fortnight, as mentioned 
above. | 
It may be remarked that the motive for paying so much atten- 
tion to the testing of grasses depended on the hope that some light 
might perhaps be thrown on the chemical changes which occur in 
the obscure process known to practical men as ‘‘ sweating”? which 
is manifested even in well-cured hay after it has been stored in 
the mow. It may still be true that mannite will be found more 
commonly in hay taken from barns than in grass plucked in the 
field. The results obtained with oat hay and June grass hay as 
above set forth tend to support this idea. Much labor would have 
. to be expended if this question were thoroughly studied. I had 
