The ‘ripening’ of cheese consists of a number of chemical changes affecting the fats, proteins and carbohydrates. The protein changes are of the general proteolytic character and are produced by bacteria, fungi, rennet-enzymes and other enzymes formed by bacteria and fungi during their growth in the cheese. The products derived from casein—the main protein-constituent of cheese—are intermediate digestive substances together with aminoacids, and secondary products formed by bacteria from the aminoacids. In a thorough study of the cheeseripening process it is of fundamental importance to ascertain what specific compounds are formed. Such knowledge must be possessed before the actual working of the process can be fully understood. It is well known to everybody connected with the manufacture of cheese that the quality of the final product depends on the nature of the ripening process.

The writer has pointed out the influence that some agricultural plants have on others when grown in close proximity to them. It was demonstrated (inter alia) that a row of Sesamum indicum (gingelly), when sown at a distance of two feet from a row of Sorghum vulgare (great millet), will not mature, the plants dying after reaching a height of a few centimetres. These experiments were made at Surat (India) on black cotton soil of a very retentive nature; this character of the soil combined with a rainfall of 42 inches per annum all falling in 3½ months, doubtless emphasized the deleterious effect of the sorghum on the sesamum since the washing of the soil was a minimum.

The chemistry of the sugars of foliage leaves and the successive transformation undergone by the various carbohydrates has been the subject of considerable speculation. Reducing substances have been known in foliage leaves for a number of years.

For several years observations have been made on the composition of rain-water, collected by Mr H. Welt, at Uithuizermeeden, a village in the northern part of the Province of Groningen. These observations were made as a part of a research on nitrification in a light clay-soil, by the method of drainage-plots such as are well known from the Rothamsted investigations. The results of these researches appeared in a Dutch journal. In the meantime it seems desirable to publish the results relating to the composition of rain-water.

One of the commonest grasses found in hedges and thickets in this country, more especially on the lighter soils, is the Tall Oat Grass (Arrhenatherum avenaceum, Beauvais). In meadows it is generally present, abundantly on some soils, while occasionally it forms part of the “seeds” mixture put down for temporary or permanent pasture. In some localities a form of this grass known as “Onion Couch” becomes a dangerous weed on the arable land—this plant is identical in outward appearance with the Tall Oat Grass except at the base of the stems where the nodes swell and form chains of bulbs each of which is capable of breaking off and giving rise to a new plant. This habit of growth together with a liberal supply of seeds formed in June and July make it a very difficult weed to eradicate. Its occurrence is usually reported from the lighter soils, but in the West of England the heavy land is equally badly affected.

Investigations on the various products of the action of lime on copper sulphate, including ordinary Bordeaux mixture, led to the conclusion that the efficacy of such substances as fungicides depended on the proportion of copper in them which is rendered soluble by the carbon dioxide of the air, and, that if a deficiency of lime is used to start with, one of the lower basic sulphates of copper is obtained, from which carbon dioxide liberates a much larger proportion of copper than it does from the more highly basic sulphates present in ordinary Bordeaux mixture. The lowest basic sulphate is, owing to its physical condition, unsuitable for spraying purposes; but this is not so with the compound 10 CuO, SO3, obtained by adding lime-water to copper sulphate just short of alkalinity, and this substance has been put on the market under the name of Woburn Bordeaux Paste. In the absence of secondary reactions, carbon dioxide should convert one-tenth of the copper present in it into soluble copper sulphate, 2 (10 CuO, SO3) + 9 CO2 = 9 (2 CuO, CO2) + 2 CuSO4, whereas with ordinary Bordeaux mixture, any copper sulphate formed in this way, would be decomposed by the excess of lime present, and that ultimately remaining undecomposed would be very small in amount.

The results of all the experiments above described may be shortly summarised as follows.

Nitrites have been shown by Molisch, M. Schultz, and by Perciabosco and Rosso to be assimilated by various plants from sufficiently dilute solutions. Perciabosco and Rosso found that plants supplied with nitrogen in this form contain higher percentages of nitrogen than with nitrates as source of nitrogen. This is also the case, as was already shown, when plants take up all, or most, of their nitrogen as ammonium salts.

Experiments with other inorganic forms of nitrogen—amidosulphonic acid, hydroxylamine, hydrazine and azoimide—have all given negative results up to the present time.

As regards organic compounds the majority have given negative if not uncertain results. The results in which at least 1 milligram of nitrogen was assimilated are set out in Table I, p. 291.

In Part I of the current volume of this Journal Green and Ampt make certain assumptions regarding the factors which control the rate of flow of water and air through soils, the basis of which is that the channels in a soil may be regarded as a bundle of capillary tubes, and that the velocity of flow of a liquid will consequently conform to Poiseuille’s formula. Such an assumption cannot however be maintained. Poiseuille’s formula was deduced from the ascertained rate of flow of liquids through straight tubes of approximately uniform diameter; the latter being 1 mm. or so. The formula is not however really accurate even under these limited conditions, as was shown by Thorpe and Roger, who found it necessary to add the correction – ρV/8πlt. But the passages through the soil are not straight or of uniform diameter for any measurable distance, in fact they are wholly irregular, which Green and Ampt recognise, for they describe them as “irregular in area, length, direction and shape.” But this being the case, Poiseuille’s formula obviously cannot be expected to apply.

The study of two years' hay crops indicates that the composition of the hay steadily changes throughout the period commonly covered by the hay-making season.

The nature of the change depends to some extent upon the character of the season. In the summer of 1909 when the climatic conditions favoured steady growth there was a steady production of protein and fibre and a considerable assimilation of ash ingredients, notably silica. In the following summer the effects of a severe climatic set-back in the later part of June was seen in an almost complete suspension of growth, and notably in the production of protein.

In both seasons there was a steady fall all round in the digestibility of the hay, which in the end more than counterbalanced the increase in weight of the crop.

In both seasons the best results were obtained by cutting about the beginning of July. A fair amount of latitude in the time of cutting —say, a week or 10 days—may be allowed, however, without very seriously impairing the nutritive value of the crop. There was evidence, nevertheless, in each year of appreciable deterioration after the middle of July.

Much work has been done in America, on the Continent and in this country, to determine the effect of different finely-ground naturally-occurring phosphatic substances on plants of various natural orders, grown under differing conditions as to the character of the soil and the use of other nutrient substances. In a few cases results or conclusions appear to conflict. Not nearly so much attention has been devoted to the effect of artificially prepared insoluble salts of phosphoric acid on the growth of plants. When these are employed in the absence of ammonium salts, and acid soil substances, definite information should be obtained as to the powers possessed by plants themselves of utilizing insoluble phosphates. With the object of making a contribution to such knowledge, oats, peas and swede turnips were grown in artificial soils made up of white sand and pure chalk, and the particular salt of phosphoric acid under investigation. The other essential nutrient substances were supplied in a dilute solution of salts.

In discussing among men of science the subject of diseases caused by bacteria, it is quite unnecessary, at this date, to argue the question as to whether there are or are not bacterial diseases of plants. A knowledge of the literature of the past fifteen years and of the character of the researches which have been carried out in this branch of phytopathology, establishes the point beyond all doubt. But it may be useful to consider briefly some of the reasons which accounted for the scepticism prevalent in earlier days.