CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL PAPERS. 69 



THE COMPOSITION AND DIGESTIBILITY OF PRAIRIE HAY 

 AND OF BUFFALO-GRASS HAY. 



By J. T. WiLLAED aud R. W. Clothiee, Kansas State Agricultural College. 

 Read before the Academy, at lola, December 31, 1901. 



\ NUMBER of digestion experiments have been carried out in re- 

 -^-^ cent years at the Kansas State Agricultural College Experiment 

 Station, and it seemed that two of these might be of some interest to 

 the Academy, namely, those on prairie hay and bufPalo-grass hay. It 

 is well-known that our prairie hay of the eastern part of the state is 

 not in high repute as a feed, and it is even more uniformly true that 

 the short grass of the plains has always been in favor. Even when 

 dead it has served to nourish animals well and bring them through 

 the winter without other feed, when snow did not prevent access to 

 it. Undoubtedly there are great difPerences among various samples 

 of both the grasses in question and hays made from them, and the 

 results here recorded are not submitted as definitive, but they certainly 

 are suggestive. 



The prairie hay used was from the uplands of Riley county, and 

 was regarded as of good quality. No botanical analysis was made of 

 it, but it probably contained a good deal of the little bluestem. It 

 was cut about August 1, 1898, and was prepared for sampling and 

 feeding by running it through an ensilage cutter. After a preliminary 

 feeding of six days to clear the digestive tract of other feed, the test 

 proper began and continued for six days more. Twenty pounds per 

 day were fed, of which about three-fourths were eaten. The animal 

 used was a three-year-old Hereford steer. 



The buffalo-grass hay was cut with a lawn-mower in Logan county, 

 during the latter part of July, 1899. It required about ten days' work 

 to get 300 pounds of hay. This was shipped to the station in excel- 

 lent condition. This hay required no further cutting to prepare it for 

 uniform mixing and sampling. It was fed to a yearling steer, a grade 

 Short-horn. Not being accustomed to this delicacy, our steer refused 

 to eat it at first, and had to be brought to the ration by mixing it with 

 alfalfa and gradually increasing the proportion of the buffalo-grass. 

 In about six days he was on the pure buffalo-grass. He was given a 

 preliminary feeding of five days, followed by five days of the period 

 of exact observation. He was given eighteen pounds per day, and ate 

 about three-fourths of it. 



The table following gives the more interesting details of the results. 

 It will be seen that, in respect to the total dry matter, the two hays 



