BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 389 
moment of germination, it might be suspected, not unnaturally, 
that certain hexosans (mannans or galactans) in the hemicelluloses 
of wood may undergo change in the spring and be converted into 
sugar, while the pentosans perhaps may not be subject to this 
particular kind of change. I hope to be able to study this ques- 
tion. Meanwhile, it is to be noted that Lindsay and Tollens * 
found mannose and galactose in ‘‘ sulphite liquor,” a waste pro- 
duct from works in which paper-pulp is prepared from spruce wood 
by the sulphite process, and that it has long been familiarly 
known that the sap of birch trees in the spring contains an abun- 
dance of a fermentable hexose. It is reported, indeed, as a matter 
of history, in the Encyclopedias of Agriculture, that. birch wine and 
birch vinegar were prepared habitually at one time in certain wild 
districts, and that at the siege of Hamburg in 1814, many birch 
trees in that vicinity were destroyed ‘‘ by barbarian soldiers in 
the Russian service,” in their efforts to obtain from the trees the 
fermentable juice. 
Quantities of Starch (and Sugar) Found in Certain Woods. 
The results here given were obtained by means of the method 
described on page 198 ($180), of Vol. III of Wiley’s Book on 
Agricultural Analysis, which consists in leaching the wood with 
ether, to remove fats, and then acting upon it, at a temperature of 
about 65° C., with diastase, as contained in a measured volume of 
fresh extract of malt, and estimating in the usual way, by means 
of copper, the sugar which has been formed from starch in the 
wood. A correction is made, of course, for the small amount of 
sugar in the malt extract used. 
Kind of Wood. Per cent of Starch (and Sugar) in wood dry at 
100° C. As obtained by the malt process: 
Inner Wood. Outer Wood. Bark. 
Gray Birch felledin May ..... 4.93 5.42 7.67 
af ae at Ee S015 ot & hr B83 3.87 7.52 
6 6 6 October. . «.. '3.75 3.51 4.24 
Sugar Maple ‘“ Sth gol eh D4 2.43 5.97 
Alder felled in January nt vdlierws 3.04 
Ivory Nutt. . . ~— 6.57 
Date Stones . (I.) 5.44 
} Separate samples and different analysts. 
eel , (II.) 4.46 
Apricot Stones . . 1.46 
* Versuchs-Stationen. 39. 423, 424. 
+ The so-called Vegetable Ivory, the seed of the South American plant, 
Phytelephas macrocarpa. For an abundant supply of turnings from the ivory 
