18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



came." Nor has it 3-et " struck" the practical farmer that this is 

 the case. There is too nuich intelligence abroad among practical 

 farmers at the present time, to have such fallacies pass current for 

 established facts. It might be well to suggest to amateur farmers, 

 that if they would be the teachers, and win the confidence of those 

 who are leading this " stupid life in scattered farm houses," it will 

 be well to keep within the limits of reason and truth. 



Ha}' is grass dried — nothing more, nothing less. In drying the 

 grass has simpl}- parted with a part of its water. Grass, minus its 

 water, becomes haj-. All know that water has no nutritive value ; 

 hence grass in dr3'iug — in changing into the form of hav, cannot, 

 b}' this process of drying, have " lost a considerable portion of its 

 nutritive value." If during the process of making into hay the par- 

 tially' dried grass gets washed b}- rains, or if allowed to ferment in 

 the mow, then another factor enters into the problem ; and of course 

 a part of its nutritive value is thus lost. If then the chemist finds 

 no loss of nutrition through the process of making ha}' from grass, 

 we have only to resort to practice for further testimony. 



Fresh grass is made up of from sevent}' to eighty-five per cent, 

 of its own weight of water, varying in different varieties and at dif- 

 ferent stages of its growth. Prof. Jordan found in Timothy, just 

 before blossoming, sevent^'-eight per cent, of water. (See report 

 of experiments at State College.) Young clover has much more. 

 In feeding gi'ass in this green state, it is found that this large per- 

 centage of water is more than the animal requires ; hence, the 

 almost universal practice, when feeding grass in the soiling s^'stem, 

 or second crop in autumn, is to partiall}' dr}' it before feeding. 

 Better results are secured than when it is fed fresh. The latest 

 researches have quite conclusively proved that the solids of green 

 grass are no more digestible in the animal system than the}' are 

 when the same is dried into hay ; or, to put it in another form — 

 as large a percentage of the solids of ha}' are digestible as of the 

 grass from which it is made. Drying grass does not decrease Us 

 digestibilitfj. 



Grass dried — made into hay — returns to the feeder just as good 

 results as it would have produced if it had been fed, in the same 

 stage of its growth, in a green state. Hence we have this nmch for 

 evidence that this class of fodder is not improved by being pre- 

 served by the new process. There is an impression prevaiHng 

 among feeders, that when green grass is consumed by stock, that 



