A statistical experiment was made on May King lettuce grown in a gravel soil in the unheated greenhouse to ascertain the effect of periodic sowings, two levels of water, and alternate drought and saturation with water on bolting and growth.

Mature lettuces at a low level of water were darker than those at a high level. The total numbers bolting irrespective of treatment were highest in May to July, and this period coincided with temperatures above 60° F., long days, and decreasing ages from germination to bolting; the largest lettuces were harvested in October to May (excluding mid-January to late March), a period of low temperatures less than 60° F., short days, and increasing ages from germination to harvest.

1. Chemical analyses have been carried out on the muscular and fatty tissues from thirty-one beef animals and twenty-nine lambs, and also on the psoas muscle from twenty-nine pigs. The animals were selected to represent a very wide cross-section of our meat industry.

2. The water content of muscular tissue (psoas muscle), calculated on a fat-free basis, was found to be the same for cattle, lambs, and pigs (immediately after death), the average being about 78%.

3. Similarly, the original water-content of the fatty tissue (perinephric), calculated on a fat-free basis, was found to be the same for cattle and lambs, being on the average about 81–82%.

4. The average water-content of boneless meat (i.e. the combined muscular and fatty tissues from a whole side or carcass) was the same for cattle and lambs, being about 79% (on a fat-free basis), shortly after death.

5. In all these cases there was no significant difference between the different species.

1. During the course of the alkali fractionation and the preparation of the humic precipitates, the qualitative characters of the fractions were followed by employing a standard hydrolysis with dilute acid. Humic acid itself was shown to be unhydrolysed by this reagent, and, therefore, the extent of hydrolysis of a humic fraction can be used as a criterion of purity.

2. Studies on the fractionation of the humic precipitate with aqueous, anhydrous, and alcoholic bases, led to the following conclusions:

(a) The humic precipitate as normally prepared i s always a mixture of true humic acid with varying amounts of co-precipitated material of a non-humic nature.

(b) This non-humic material is not an integral part of the humic molecules, it is merely co-precipitated and adsorbed contaminants.

(c) The non-humic material is differentiated from the humic acids by the following properties: (i) it is hydrolysable with acid; (ii) it does not give the characteristic nitro-humic compound on nitration.

1. Meiosis was studied in pollen mother cells of the following F1 hybrids: Victory × Avoine d’hiver, Victory × Grey Winter, Argentine × Avoine d’hiver, Victory × Argentine and Avoine d’hiver × Grey Winter.

Caecal coccidiosis of rather more than usual severity has been found to develop in chicks folded on a stemmy type perennial rye grass pasture at Hanns Hall Farm this season.

Subsequent brooder house experiments have demonstrated that chicks receiving a diet relatively low in protein and fibre content and relatively high in starch content, as cereals, failed to develop coccidiosis when subjected to severe infestation by coccidial oocysts, while the chicks in the same brooder house on a diet containing more roughage developed acute coccidiosis, and other chicks in the same brooder house on a diet containing a relatively high proportion of protein developed chronic coccidiosis.

As these experiments have shown that coccidiosis occurs on diets designed to promote proliferation of anaerobic bacteria in the intestines, and, conversely, does not occur when chicks are fed a diet designed to depress the proliferation of undesirable bacteria in the intestines, it would appear that coccidiosis in chicks is a secondary complaint, the primary aetiological agents being bacteria which proliferate to excess in the presence of roughage or protein.

Attention is drawn to the occurrence of postcoccidial abscesses which may occur after apparent successful treatment with Sulphamezathine for the cure of coccidiosis.

1. A survey was made of swede fields in Cumberland and it was found that more than half the gross acreage was affected with Brown Heart to a greater or lesser extent.

2. The water-soluble boron content of soils from affected and non-affected fields was determined. In general the boron content of fields showing Brown Heart was less than 0·30 parts per million.

3. There is a close association between soil texture and the incidence of boron deficiency, a greater proportion of cases occurring on light soils.

4. Recent liming rather than the actual pH. level of the soil appears to be correlated with the occurrence of Brown Heart in the field.

5. It would appear that some prediction of the possibility of Brown Heart occurring might be made from a knowledge of the ‘available boron’ content of the soil taken in conjunction with such factors as the soil-texture and liming history of the field concerned.

The testing of a large number of varieties or treatments can generally be most conveniently made by the use of the quasi-factorial designs devised by Yates. The value of such designs is enhanced by the possibility of introducing further treatments on parts of the plots. The present paper describes a lattice square trial testing 25 organic treatments (actually 22 different treatments with a control represented three times) in which all combinations of nitrogen, phosphate and potash were also tested by splitting the plots and confounding the three-factor interaction with whole plots, the total number of split-plots being 300. Both the design and analysis are comparatively simple and straight-forward, and will serve as an example of the use of split-plot confounding in most types of quasi-factorial designs.