A short account is given of the main changes which take place during the ensilage process. Details are given of the methods of analysis used in examining samples of silage for pH, crude-protein, volatile base, amino acid, lactic acid, total volatile acid, acetic acid and butyric acid contents. The results of the examination of 293 samples of silage are discussed. Of these 258 were made from grassland herbage, 24 from silage crops, 9 from sugar-beet tops, and 2 from potatoes. The silages were made in towers, wood-lined pits, and a small number in stacks or clamps. The samples are divided up into those made by the ordinary process, with added molasses, with added whey, with moderate amounts of mineral acid with or without molasses, and with mineral acids added in amounts sufficient to bring the mass rapidly to a pH of 3·0–4·0—the A.I.V. process.

For comparative purposes the silages made by these processes have been divided, within each process, into groups of varying pH. reaction.

1. Treatment in bulk of the grain of wheat, barley, winter oats and spring oats with a proprietary dust, and two experimental dusts A and B which contained organic compounds of mercury, had no harmful effect on germination when drilling followed shortly after treatment. In the case of spring oats, drilling was delayed 7½ weeks after treatment without any harmful effects on germination.

2. The proprietary and experimental dusts both proved effective in controlling bunt disease of wheat, and the leaf-stripe and net-blotch diseases of barley.

3. In the case of barley, the proprietary and experimental dusts both increased the speed of “brairding” but not the final plant population. This hastening of seedling growth did not lead to a higher yield.

4. In the case of winter oats, only the experimental dust A gave a significant increase in plant population and a satisfactory control of the loose smut disease.

In a previous paper(1) reference was made to the subject of seed disinfection, in particular to an investigation on disinfectant dusts containing mercury. It was shown that by the use of certain of these dusts the common seed-borne diseases of cereals (excluding the loose smuts of barley and wheat) could be controlled. The present observations record further work, chiefly greenhouse and field studies, that has been done on green peas. This crop would appear to be of increasing economic importance, since in the past ten years the acreage devoted to it has increased by approximately 49 per cent. Its successful cultivation is often much influenced by climatic and soil conditions, particularly during the first few weeks after sowing. If adverse weather conditions follow, poor germination may result although the seed sown may have been viable and not necessarily diseased. Failures of such a type are usually associated with the rotting of the ungerminated seed in the soil, but from the same bulks, samples sown under more favourable conditions may germinate well and produce a satisfactory crop. Ogilvie (2,3,4) finds that in the Western Advisory province Ascochyta Pisi and Mycosphaerella pinodes are two causes of the early failure of pea plants, and that “pea sickness” is associated with a strain of the eelworm Heterodera schachtii and with foot-rot caused by various species of Fusarium. Premature dying-off of the plants is accompanied sometimes with Heterodera schachtii and foot-rot and sometimes with foot-rot alone.

A series of experiments designed to measure the losses in dry matter and nutrients in different types of silage are described. These extend over a period of 4 years. The ordinary or low-temperature process (maximum temperature 80–100° F.) is described either with or without added molasses or whey solutions, and is compared with processes in which solutions of mineral acids are added. The A.I.V. process of Virtanen, in which the acidity of the mass is reduced rapidly to pH. 3·0–4·0 by the addition of a mineral acid solution, is considered in detail.

The effect of sulphate of ammonia in tending to make soil acid when it is applied as a manure has been well known ever since about 1891 when Wheeler (1) first observed the phenomenon at the Rhode Island Experiment Station. Similar results to those observed by Wheeler have been found all over the world where this manure has been applied for many years on soils containing very little calcium carbonate. One of these cases has occurred at the Woburn Experimental Station, where acidity has developed which has been fatal to continued cultivation of both wheat and barley. Seeing that the soil in the continuous barley experiments at this station has been treated with sulphate of ammonia for fifty years, with or without other mineral manures, the conditions have given an excellent opportunity to study the effect of soils made acid in this way on the growth and composition of the barley plant.

In the accompanying article attention is drawn to a source of error which arises in grading coarse and fine sand subsequent to dispersion. The method of mechanical analysis in which the error arises, and to which the writer refers, is the revised official method adopted several years ago by the Agricultural Education Association(1). The usual procedure is to wash the dispersed soil on to a No. 70 I.M.M. sieve with a jet of hot water, and to rub it gently with a rubber pestle or the finger until no more will pass through. Robinson(2) states that this rubbing is generally unnecessary. The writer has found, however, that even prolonged washing and rubbing with a rubber pestle are ineffective in removing all the fine sand. In the wet mixture the sands are held together closely by surface tension. In order to overcome this, it would seem reasonable first to dry the sieve and its contents at 105° C. and give a further light sieving. This has been done with a large variety of soils, and it has been found that an extremely high proportion of fine sand is withheld when working with certain soils. The amount of fine sand sieved out of the dried mixture increases or decreases in proportion to the amount of total sands present. This is illustrated in the accompanying graph (Fig. 1), where it is to be noticed that, in soils increasing in total sands from 50 per cent (or thereabouts) upwards, the error begins to assume serious proportions.

1. Digestibility determinations of broad bran, straight-run middlings and fine middlings are here reported.

2. On the basis of these determinations bran would appear to be a relatively dear feeding stuff for use with poultry, as compared with the finer grades of milling offals.

3. In the case of chick feeding mixtures, the finer milling offals suffer from the disadvantage of causing pasting in the mouth, this disadvantage militating against their too extensive inclusion in chick feeding mixtures. From the evidence obtained in these experiments it would appear that this disadvantage would come into play when more than 40 per cent of the total mixture consists of the finer offals.

4. From the point of view of economy and efficiency of utilization, a mixture of bran and middlings would appear to be of more value than either of these foods fed separately.

5. The inclusion of bran in chick feeding mixtures would appear to be justified on dietetic grounds, in spite of its relatively poor value measured by digestibility trials.

6. From a biological standpoint, bran and bran-weatings mixtures appear to be definitely superior to wheat itself when used exclusively as a source of food and supplemented with 1·5 per cent cod-liver oil and 2 per cent oyster shell.

In the process of manufacture of sugar from sugar beet, the sugar is first extracted from the beet by appropriate means, and the wet residue or pulp is then dried and sold for cattle feeding. The composition of the dried pulp or slices differs somewhat according to the nature of the process used in the extraction of the sugar. In the “diffusion” process, in which water is used, the extraction is very efficient, with the result that the sugar content of the dried pulp is low. In the Steffen process, in which press methods are used, a fair amount of sugar is left in the dried residues. In the de Vecchi process the sliced beets are dried before the extraction of the sugar takes place, and a certain proportion of these slices is occasionally marketed on the Continent as cattle food. The characteristic differences between these three types of pulp are shown by analyses given by Fangauf and Waldow(1).

An account is given of a preliminary experiment on artificial insemination of cross-bred Merino sheep in Kenya. 202 ewes were inseminated and 74·3 per cent conceived. The practical application of artificial insemination to sheep breeding in Kenya is discussed.