The initial work on the composition of the fluid obtained from the udders of virgin heifers has been extended and the character of the secretions of the mammary gland during first pregnancy has been investigated.

The results obtained point to the following conclusions:

During the first four or five months of pregnancy, the character and composition of the mammary secretion undergo no essential alterations. During this time, the mechanism of the gland which elaborates the normal constituents of milk is displaying feeble activity.

After about twenty weeks the secretion undergoes a progressive change in character and composition. The characteristic milk constituents begin to disappear, and ultimately the secretion, which is now honey-like in consistency, contains about 40 per cent, total solids, of which about 35 per cent, is globulin. During this phase, which apparently corresponds with a definite stage in the gland's development, the normal activity of the cells which results in the production of caseinogen, lactose, etc. seems to be in abeyance.

Removal of the honey-like secretion from the udder leads to a stimulation of normal mammary gland activity, in the same way as thorough and frequent milking stimulates activity during normal lactation. The viscous secretion gives way to a milk-like fluid. This is produced in relatively large amount and contains appreciable percentages of the normal colostrum corstituents.

If the honey-like secretion is not removed from the gland, the transition from this phase to the eclostral phase appears to be much more gradual and is probably taking place uniformly throughout the remainder of pregnancy.

In a recent paper dealing with the changes which occur during the ensilage of oats and tares, Amos and Woodman (1) indicate that drainage is an important source of loss during ensilage and record that the drainage liquid has been found to contain varying quantities, between 4 and 10 per cent., of soluble material. No analysis of this soluble material is given.

Of the two available methods for the determination of hydrogen-ion concentration, the electrometric is the more fundamental and satisfactory but it requires somewhat elaborate and expensive apparatus. The colorimetric method, on the other hand, though not lacking in difficulties if accurate results are wanted, requires no special apparatus and the actual procedure is simple. It is based on the electrometric method, and involves the use of buffer solutions of known hydrogen-ion concentration determined originally electrometrically.

Field experiments with maize at the Bahtim Experimental Station and laboratory tests indicate that the lower efficiency of ammonium sulphate as compared with nitrate of soda is due principally under these special conditions to the liberation of ammonia from the fertiliser in contact with an alkaline soil. The rate of this liberation is a function of the aeration and of the soil reaction.

(1) The variation of the total yields according to the month of calving is given, and causes for this variation are suggested from the mean lactation curves of cows calving in each month.

(2) A curve showing the effect of pregnancy on the lactation yield has been prepared and corrections are given for different lengths of service periods after calving—“100 days” being chosen as a standard, as that was found to be the average of all service periods obtained, and as it gives a calf at about the same time in the following year.

(3) The variation in yield as the cow gets older has been studied and corrections are given. The maximum yield appears to be reached at the fifth calf; it was found that service periods varied in a definite way with age.

(4) The effect of the dry period before calving on the subsequent yield is shown; “85 days” has been taken as a standard and corrections given accordingly; the standard was the mean of all dry periods obtained, but is probably above the average throughout the country.

(5) By applying these corrections, the variation of individual totals is reduced by approximately 20 per cent, and the number of lactations showing less than 5 per cent, variation is increased by 27·3 per cent.

(6) A brief review of other literature on the subject is given, and the results obtained in this paper are compared with those of other investigators.

The thanks of the authors are due to the members of the Penrith Milk Recording Society for the loan of their registers, which made this investigation possible, and to Mr Garnet, the Live Stock Officer of the district, and the Live Stock Branch, of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries for the collection of the data; the authors are also greatly indebted to Mr G. Udny Yule, M.A., F.R.S., for much assistance in the purely statistical part of the work, and to Dr F. H. A. Marshall, F.R.S., for his advice during the course of the investigation.

Whey is the liquid which drains from the curd produced by the action of rennet on milk or from the curd formed by natural souring of milk or by the addition to milk of weak acids or other precipitants.

The concentration of cheese-making at factories in recent years has resulted in the production of large quantities of whey at centres where adequate provision has not been made for its disposal. Part of it is consumed as pig food. The remainder is discharged into streams and sewers. This involves the destruction of large amounts of valuable food material. To prevent contamination, discharge into streams is now generally prohibited. Sometimes it is irrigated on to the land as manure. On the farm practically all the whey produced is consumed as pig food.

A series of measurements of wire diameter, length of side, and area of holes, has been made on new and used sieves, all of which were originally of the “100 mesh” size, i.e. the square holes were supposed to be ·01″ in length of side and the wire to be ·01″ in diameter. The measurements have been expressed as frequency curves.

In the case of unused sieves woven to the I.M.M. specification, the sieve on the whole compared well with the specification, but in used sieves the variations were much greater. The divergence from specification in the new and old sieves is shown by Tables I and II respectively.

In one sieve (No. 2) the holes elongated more in one direction than the other. In fact in one direction the alteration which has taken place is a contraction rather than a stretch. This effect was probably connected with the manner in which the sieve was attached to its metal framework, and also to difference in tempering of the wires and the tension in weaving.

A number of the frequency curves showed double peaks, and the actual observations showed that there was a systematic distribution of values corresponding to these two peaks. It is probable that some of the guides in one of the combs through which the warp wires are led during the weaving were displaced sideways, thus giving alternate strands of wire and narrow holes. This was particularly the case in the single weave.

The maximum water-retaining capacity of a soil may be defined as the quantity of water, measured as a percentage of the mass of oven-dry material, that the soil can retain after it has been thoroughly wetted and then allowed to drain freely. It is generally estimated in the laboratory by Hilgard's method (1893). The air-dried sifted soil is packed by jarring into a small perforated cylindrical brass box which is then placed in a vessel containing water, so that the bottom layer of the soil is in contact with the liquid surface. After standing an hour, the cylinder is removed, surplus water wiped away, and the whole weighed. The cylinder and contents are then dried to constant mass in an air-oven at 110° C. The weighings are corrected for the mass of the cylinder and that of the filter paper employed to cover the sieve. From the results, the maximum water-retaining capacity may directly be calculated.

In 1913 the National Association of Millers was invited by the Board of Agriculture to formulate a definition of the term “Millers' Offals.” After some discussion the Association forwarded the following resolution: “That millers' offals, or wheaten offals sold as such, are the products of wheat and of the vegetable substances extracted from the wheats of commerce in the process of cleaning; but the proportion of such extraneous matter shall not exceed the percentage found in the wheats imported into the United Kingdom.”

It has been shown that the pigment in silage is phaeophytin, the magnesium-free derivative of chlorophyll. It is produced from chlorophyll by the action of carbonic acid and organic acids developed during fermentation in the silo.

As has long been realised by soil bacteriologists, the present plating technique used in estimating bacterial numbers in soil suffers from the lack of a really efficient means of disintegrating the soil, so as to produce an even suspension of the organisms in the diluting fluid. As a consequence of this, although we are able, by careful standardisation of the shaking and dilution, to compare the bacterial numbers in two or more samples of the same soil type, the figures obtained are only relative, and do not give an estimate of the total bacterial numbers of the soil.