GREEN FOOD IN SILOS. IGO 



loss of leaves iu the case of the clover-hay, has been noticed 

 to amount, even in a careful farm management of hay- 

 making in fair weather, to from two to six per cent less of 

 the several proximate constituents of the dry matter in the 

 clover-hay. Observations on lucern confirm the previous 

 statement. The following analytical results give some more 

 definite idea regarding the amount less digested of each con- 

 stituent in the case of clover-hay as compared with the green 

 clover. Cattle served for the experiment. (KUhn.) 



Careful investigation of a quite recent date (Kiihn, Wolff, 

 etc.) has proved that a mere drying of our common fodder- 

 crops, as grass, clover, and other leguminous plants, does not 

 affect their rate of digestibility. The green fodder, and the 

 dry fodder or hay (entire plant) from the same plant, in tlie 

 same stage of growth, have shown a corresponding rate of 

 assimilation of their dry substance. Whenever, therefore, 

 the production of dry fodder can be carried on in a short 

 period of time and in a satisfactory manner, the largest 

 amount of dry matter of the highest attainable feeding value 

 may be secured from the plant in that way : no other cur- 

 rent mode of preserving its feeding value can equal it in 

 regard to the quantity of the result. As, hoAvever, the 

 quality of a dry fodder, as hay, clover, stover, etc., depends 

 on the influence of the weather, and the mode of liandling 

 and of keeping, — circumstances which are to a large extent, 

 in ordinary farm practice, beyond personal control, — our vari- 

 ous articles of dry fodder are frequently far from what they 

 might be, or ought to be. The above few analytical state- 

 ments regarding the loss, in case of the dry fodder, by waste, 

 of the tender parts of the plant, as well as regarding the 

 influence of rain on half-dried fodder, give us at least a 

 chance to approximate the loss, in nutritive constituents, 

 from these two sources, which are liable to acquire unusual 

 importance in case of those plants for wliich the silo system 



