36 Chanyes icldch take place in the Field 



Average Cojnposition of Meadoic-Jiaf/. 



Dried at 212^ I'ubr. 



Moisture 14-Gl 



AVax and fatty matters 2-50 .... 2'99 



*Albiimen and otlier nitrogenous compounds) q.aa q.qo 



(flesh-lbrming matters) j ' " ' ' 



Sugar, gum, starch and similar compounds (respi-) ,-. ,r.- 4Q-00 



ratory substances) J 



Indigestible woody -tibre (cellulose) 27"16 .... ol'80 



Mineral matter (ash) G-IG .... 7-24 



100-00 100-00 



* Containing nitrogen I*. 35 .... 1-58 



Haj, whether produced from clover or natural grasses, evi- 

 dently contains a good deal of ready formed sugar or soluble 

 organic matter, having an analogous composition, and readily 

 convertible under the influence of ferments, first into sugar 

 and afterwards into alcohol and carbonic acid. These consti- 

 tuents are essential elements in all liquids and moist substances 

 capable of entering into fermentation. No less essential are 

 albumen, gluten, and other nitrogenous compounds. Some of 

 the nitrogenous matter in hay occurs in a soluble, some in a con- 

 dition insoluble in water. Soluble albumen and all albuminous 

 compounds exposed for a short time to air and moisture, are 

 readily transformed into ferments, that is to say agents which play 

 the same part as yeast in setting up fermentation in sugary coin- 

 pounds. It appears that when a vegetable juice ferments, the 

 admission of the air is necessary to the commencement of the 

 change which then goes on, even if the air be afterwards excluded. 

 Ferments almost invariably contain the germs of minute fungi, 

 which become rapidly developed and multiplied in the measure 

 in which the fermentation proceeds. Albuminous compounds that 

 have been exposed for a short time to the influence of the air, as 

 in ordinary ferments, are only capable of acting as indvicers of 

 fermentation when in a state of decomposition. This explains 

 satisfactorily why hay that has been subject to excessive fermen- 

 tation generally is very innutritious, such a great loss of flesh- 

 forming, as well as sugary constituents, being implied by 

 fermentation. 



The most reasonable explanation of the fermentation of sugar 

 has been given by Liebig. Ferments, the great German chemist 

 says, being in a state of decomposition, have their constituent 

 particles in a state of motion, and by communicating, mechani- 

 cally, an impulse or motion to the particles of sugar, destroy the 

 balance of affinities to which its existence is owing, and thus 

 give rise to a new balance or equilibrium more stable under 



