RELATIONS OF FEKDING TO FERTILITY. 



43 



more for English hay than for clover hay, and sometimes farmers 

 will too, being unaware of tliis difference. 



From a ton of 3'oung grass, fed in the green state, the result is 

 two dollars and sixt^'-seven cents. The fertilizing material left 

 after feeding a ton of turnips is worth eighty-seven cents. We 

 have heard the practice advocated sometimes of keeping swine and 

 feeding them on turnips, as an operation for manufacturing manure. 

 I would like you to figure, some of these leisure winter evenings, 

 how many dollars' worth of manure you would get from a flock of 

 hogs fed on raw turnips through the winter months. 



Question. What would be the difference between a ton of English 

 ha}- and what we call stock hay, or swale ha^' ? 



Sec. Gilbert. A ton of what we call low ground meadow ha}-, 

 in place of the thirty-one pounds of nitrogen that we find in English 

 hay, would contain no more than half that amount and possibly less, 

 varying with the quality of the grasses. The manurial value and the 

 feeding value are closely allied to each other. The low feeding 

 value of these grasses comes from the fact that these valuable ele- 

 ments are not found in them to any great extent. If a fodder has 

 a poor feeding value, it is low in the amount of these elements of 

 fertilit}-. We find that illustrated in practice. In my own vicinity 

 there are extensive meadows, cutting thousands of tons of hay everv 

 year ; the farmers all around in tliat vicinity cut large quantities of 

 that hay each, and haul it back to their farms. They have done 

 it year after year for seventy-five years, yet there is no perceptible 

 increase in the fertility of those farms, although this hay, together 

 with their English hay, has been fed out upon these farms all tliese 

 years. Why not? It comes from the fact that there is but an 

 extremely small i)ercentage of these materials in it, and if not there 

 the farm cannot be benefitted through feeding it or rotting it down. 

 It contributes but little to the fertilizing material on the farm, for 

 that material does not exist in it when it is hauled there, to any 

 great extent. 



Question. Do you think that clover hay has more feeding value 

 in it than what we call common herdsgrass, or red-top? 



Sec. Gilbert. From the tone which the gentleman gives to the 

 question I judge he is appealing to my conscience, and therefore I 

 will answer him from my own experience in that direction, as well 

 as from the study I have given it ; and will say, that clover hay is 

 no exception to the statement I have made, that you may rely upon 

 4 



