STATE AGRICULTURL SOCIETY. 247 



ine some of these grasses anew, bringing to the inquiry the aid 

 of more recent physiological principles, and the methods of 

 modern chemical research. 



* * * * ujq have undertaken the proximate analysis of 

 so large a series of specimens as the grasses present, — to have 

 separately ascertained the quantity of each nitrogenous and non- 

 nitrogenous principle they contained, would have been, if not 

 impossible, (within any moderate space of time), at least useless, 

 for our other knowledge of nutrition of animals is not sufl&ciently 

 advanced to enable us to make use of such data. But on the 

 other hand, it was possible to direct our efforts to the acquisition 

 of that class of facts which could immediately be made available 

 in relation to existing physiological knowledge; and with that 

 view, I decided upon ascertaining, so far as might be, not the 

 quantity of each vegetable principle present, in the different 

 grasses, but that of each class of such principles. The analyses 

 that follow will be found to embrace the following particulars : 



1st. The proportion of water in each grass as taken from the 

 field. The necessity for this determination is obvious. 



2d. The proportion of albuminous or Jlesh-forming principles^ 

 including, without distinction, all the nitrogenous principles. 



3d. The proportion of oily or fatty matters which may be 

 called fat-producing principles. 



4th. The proportion of elements of respiration or heat-produc- 

 ing principles^ under which head are comprised starch, gum, 

 sugar, pectic acid, &c., in fact, all the non-nitrogenous principles, 

 with the exception of fatty matter and woody fiber. 



5th. Woody fiber. 



Gth. Mineral matter or ash. 



" It will be observed that some of these particulars are rather 

 of negative tlian of direct interest. Water, for instance, in a 

 plant, is of no value in feeding animals, but its proportion is a 

 necessary element of our calculations, because, with the varia- 

 tions in quantity of moisture, will be corresponding variations, 

 though in tlie opposite sense, of the real nutritive matter of 

 the j>lant. 



"The woody fiber of }»lants is considered to have no v.ilue in a 

 nutritive point of view, except that (which, by the way, is suf- 

 ficiently important) of giving bulk to the food. Still its deter- 



