SCOTCH HILL SHEEP. 273 



deduction being made for extra costs, is a decided discourage- 

 ment to the adoption of a system that would in the end be a 

 benefit, direct or indirect, to all classes of the community. 



Part II.— By Professor Edward KI^'CH, F.I.C, F.O.S., &c. 

 Chemical Composition. 



The composition and nutritive value of the important fodder 

 plants of hill pasture specially mentioned in Part I. have been 

 hitherto comparatively little studied. I am not aware that any 

 analyses of British specimens have been published, although 

 since the date of the late J. T. Way's classical paper on the 

 composition of different natural and artificial grasses {Journal of 

 Royal Agricultural Society, vol. xiv. p. 171, 1853) very numerous 

 analyses of fodder plants have been published. Among the most 

 important and useful of these papers may be mentioned the follow- 

 ing: — by Eitthausen and Scheven {Jaliresbericht fur Agricultur- 

 Chemie, 1859, p. 76) ; by Arendt and Knop (Lanclivirthschcftlich 

 Ver sucks- Stationen, 1860, p. 32), this includes ten sedges and 

 rushes ; also E. Wolff and J. Klihn have given tables showing 

 the average composition of hay of many kinds, taken in the 

 main from German sources. Within the last few years much 

 useful work in the analysis of fodders has been done at 

 some of the various Agricultural Colleges and Experimental 

 Stations of the United States and by the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, Washington. The results of the latter will be found in the 

 Eeports of the Commissioner of Agriculture. In that for 1878 

 is a report on grasses and forage plants by the chemist, Peter 

 Collier, and the botanist, George Vasey. In this thirty-four 

 analyses are given, including ash analyses ; in the report for 

 1879 are given about ninety analyses of fodders, for the most 

 part of specimens of wild grasses ; in the report for 1880 are 

 analyses of fifteen grasses and three leguminous plants, each at 

 from two to five different stages of growth, and in addition 

 thirty-seven other analyses of plants mostly in full bloom ; in 

 1881-82 report are summaries of much of the work, with an 

 average of seventy-seven analyses of wild grasses taken in 

 bloom. In the latter years the albuminoid and non-albuminoid 

 nitrogen have been determined separately. 



F. H. Storer {Bulletin Bussey Institute, 1875, 1877, 1878) 

 has analysed many fodder plants and weeds, including some 

 Car ices, Juncacecc, and Equiseti. 



The chemists of the Connecticut Agricultural Exi)eriment 

 Station, under the direction of Professor S. W. Johnson, has 

 examined a large number of fodders ; and Dr H. P. Armsby, of 

 this station, has determined the amount of albuminoid and non- 



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