The close-grazing or rotational system of pasture management has received wide attention in recent years, not only from the agricultural chemist but in one or other of its various modifications from the farmer and dairyman. Its underlying principles have been found to be sound and its main features capable of practical application. Given a fertile soil, suitable fertilisation and favourable seasonal conditions, it serves to furnish a highly digestible, high-protein herbage throughout the season.

1. Some records of tile drain performance by J. Bailey Denton in 1856–7 have been re-examined. The different aspects of drainage in heavy- and light-soil types are indicated.

2. The existence and influence of the movements of the water table in connection with the behaviour of light-land drains are demonstrated. The problem of the water table in heavy land is discussed and the behaviour of field test holes in such circumstances is explained by surface drainage into them.

3. The magnitude of the fluctuations in run-off from heavy land and the need for closer records of outfall performance are stressed.

1. An account has been given of the composition and weights of nutrients and sugars in sixty-four sugar beet plants from just before singling until maturity. The assimilation, translocation and distribution of these have been discussed.

2. At about singling, the leaves contained 90 per cent. of the dry matter and 76 per cent. of the sugars of the plant, whereas, at maturity, the figures were 28 and 3 per cent. respectively.

3. The percentage of reducing sugars in the dry substance of the complete plant maintained a steady level throughout, as was also the case with cane sugar in the leaves. The highest percentages of sugars in the dry matter of both leaves and roots were attained by early August. Evidence is produced to show that, although in the plant as a whole carbon assimilation proceeded more quickly than the intake of soil nutrients, until early July the rate of translocation of carbon to the roots did not equal the rate of intake of soil nutrients by the latter.

1. The available information as to the yields and composition of hay from the Palace Leas plots at Cockle Park has been summarised.

2. The use of basic slag alone, or in conjunction with other artificial fertilisers, is shown to have been the most effective treatment for the production of high quality as measured by analysis. Manurial dressings from which the phosphatic component has been omitted have had a depressing effect.

3. The results of feeding trials are not wholly in agreement with those of analysis, but confirm the effectiveness of phosphatic fertilisers.

Of the genetic problems upon the solution of which immediate progress in plant breeding depends, hybrid vigour is in the front rank. This is particularly the case in naturally out-pollinating and highly self-sterile plants such as many forms of Brassica oleracea, and some of the pasture plants. But in these, genetic experiment is peculiarly difficult. With some crops, notably maize and the tomato, it has proved practicable and clearly advantageous to grow commercial crops of F1 plants. Even in the British cereals (all, save rye, highly self-fertile and self-pollinating) there are grounds for believing hybrid vigour to be of some economic interest. A thorough investigation of vigour was therefore made in the cross Little Joss × Thule (both T. vulgare) in the F1, F2 and F3 generations. In addition a range of ninety-four crosses was studied on a small scale. Of these fifty-six were between varieties of T. vulgare, the remainder being interspecies, some with parents of the same chromosome number and some not. “Vigour”, variably specified by investigators, was here taken to be yield of grain together with the associated attribute, tillering. Certain physiological experiments were also made on grain weight, germination rate, embryo weight and respiration rate of the germinating grain. The crosses were made reciprocally.

Specimens of wholemeal wheat flour from plots given various soil treatment were examined for vitamin B1 potency by the heart-rate method. The differences detected were not of a striking order, the relative values being as follows: treated with ammonium sulphate= 120; ammonium sulphate plus “complete mineral manure” = 120; dung = 100; no treatment= 100; complete mineral manure= 80. The lack of any striking variation was also confirmed by growth tests on the “sharps” prepared from the several grains.

1. Pasture soil was found to be characterised by relatively high ammonia and low nitrate-nitrogen content during the main growing period (May-September). Applications of sulphate of ammonia while initially raising the ammonia and nitrate-nitrogen levels, ultimately led to a lowering. The effect of irrigation during the spring, when the soil moisture content was high, was to depress the ammonia and nitratenitrogen levels, but during the dry summer months and subsequently the levels were appreciably raised.

2. A small though definite periodic change in the reaction of normal grassland soil took place during the season, the soil being most acid during the summer. Added sulphate of ammonia slightly accentuated the change, and the return to normal in the autumn was not quite attained.

A description is given of a peculiar condition which developed in certain animals being fed rations at present in use for the nutrition of swine in this country.

The experimental treatments which were being imposed at the time bore no relation to the onset of the symptoms which appeared to develop indiscriminately.

The animals refused food, adopted a swaying or “drunken” gait, at a later stage lost the power of their limbs and finally became prostrate.

The sedimentation method for the mechanical analysis of poly-disperse systems such as a suspension of soil in water is now in its various modifications a well-established technique of analysis(1). Unfortunately, they all, with one exception, involve interference of some kind with the process of sedimentation itself; either by the introduction of pipettes and hydrometers, or the opening of drain-cocks, and the one exception, viz. the sedimentation balance, is subject to a considerable error of a different kind (2). The present paper describes the results of attempts to use the transmission of a beam of light through a glass cell, as a measure of the sedimentation process taking place within it, the transmitted light being received on a photo-electric cell.

The fungicidal and phytocidal properties of manufactured hydrocarbons and their simpler hydroxyl-derivatives and esters have been examined by application in spray-form to young leaves of hops bearing powdery patches of the hop powdery mildew (Sphaerotheca humuli (D.C.) Burr.). The sprays were prepared by agitation with 0·25 per cent. Agral I solutions. For ease of description the term fungicidal is applied only to sprays which are lethal to the fungus, whilst a spray is termed phytocidal when injury to the leaf results at areas not invaded by the fungus.

1. Benzene was fungicidal and phytocidal at concentrations of 2 per cent., whereas the hydrogenation products, cyclohexane, methyl cyclohexane and dekalin, were inactive at this concentration. Fungicidal and phytocidal properties were shown at 7 per cent, of the two former, and 3–4 per cent. of the latter.