226 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



throughout a large portion of Europe for nearly twenty-five 

 years, — from 1838 to 1862. The use of the tables of hay- 

 values for the compounding of fodder-recipes, outlived all the 

 propositions of chemists of preceding years, and greatly over- 

 shadowed for years the contemporary and really valuable 

 results of careful scientific inquiries at Giessen, Bechelbronn, 

 Rothamsted, Mockern, and elsewhere. 



Whilst agriculturists quite naturally looked to their own 

 distinguished leaders for advice in their occupation, chemists 

 and physiologists, who believed that a thorough knowledge 

 of vegetable and animal chemistry and physiology must 

 prove in the end the best guide for a correct explanation 

 of practical results in stock-feeding, followed the course 

 pointed out by Liebig and Boussingault. The latter advo- 

 cated in 1836, as has been previously stated, the opinion, 

 that the feeding-value of the various kinds of fodder depends 

 on their relative percentage of nitrogen, and that the various 

 non-nitrogenous substances present, as fat, starch, sugar, 

 &c, serve merely as the support of animal respiration. This 

 view, turned to account for a tabular representation of rela- 

 tive fodder-values, resulted quite naturally in an over-esti- 

 mation of those substances which are rich in nitrogenous 

 matter ; as, for instance, the bran of various cereal grains, 

 containing approximately from eight to fourteen per cent; 

 the press-cakes of oil-furnishing seeds, from twelve to forty- 

 five per cent ; and the leguminous seeds, as beans, pease, &c, 

 twenty to thirty -five per cent ; whilst root-crops, potatoes, 

 &c, containing only from one to four per cent of these sub- 

 stances, were, as a general rule, placed at too low a position 

 in the table. Although his views soon suffered a serious 

 modification, in consequence of his own course of investiga- 

 tion, as well as the general progressive movements elsewhere, 

 they have, until quite a late date, exerted their influence 

 on the making up of fodder-recipes, by favoring rather 

 higher nitrogen rations than more recent experience advises. 

 Probably the most important service which Boussingault 

 has rendered to the science of rational stock-feeding in its 

 earlier history consists in the introduction of the chemical 

 analysis as an essential requirement for the determination of 

 the feeding-value of an article of fodder. The influence 

 of the chemical analysis of fodder-crops on the development 



