REPORT ON GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 189 
with many of whom hay, as it was formerly prepared, has become auite 
obsolete, and they insist upon dried grass as the name to be hereafter 
used and the material to be hereafter provided as a winter supply of 
food to their animals. It is certainly noticeable that within the past 
fifteen years there has been a gradual tendency among farmers to cut 
their grass at earlier periods in its growth and development, long expe- 
rience having taught them that the nutritive value of their supply of 
hay was by no means correctly estimated by its weight or bulk; and 
there is little doubt but that this later practice, which experience sanc- 
tions, will be fully sustained by the results of chemical analysis and the 
teachings of science. Indeed, in the few analyses of native grasses 
already given there will be found strong confirmatory proof of the posi- 
tion assumed, for by reference to the two analyses of Andropogens 
(Virginicus and scoparius, closely allied varieties of. the same species) 
there will be seen a marked difference in the results, the amount of al- 
buminoids in the first being to those present in the second as 100: 48. 
The probable explanation of this discrepancy is to be found in the fact 
that the former specimen was taken at an earlier stage of growth. Ib 
follows also that to be of greatest value the analyses of all the above 
grasses should be duplicated from specimens taken at periods of devel- 
opment even earlier than that at which these samples were taken, since 
it is well known as a fact that cattle will feed with avidity upon certain 
grasses at one season of their development, for which at a later season 
of growth they manifest no desire. 
The specimens of grasses analyzed were taken mainly at the time when 
the development of the flower or seed rendered their identification cer- 
tain, but it is altogether doubtful whether this period of development 
was in every case that of maximum nutritive value. <A careful series of 
feeding experiments would doubtless throw much light upon this sub- 
ject, and enable us to fix more accurately the actual and relative nutri- 
tive value of our grasses. 
In reference to this prominent constituent of all the grasses, which 
for want of a better name has been termed Amylaceous Cellulose, there 
certainly is need of experimental results from feeding. It has been pretty 
generally thought that it was only the cellulose of the tender and more 
succulent plants which was capable of digestion and assimilation, but 
certain later experiments throw doubt upon these earlier conelusions. 
Voit has shown (Chem. Central Blat., 1870, page 223) that while such 
erude fiber was not digested by the carnivora, on the contrary, herbiv- 
orous animals digested 50 per cent. or more; and according to the ex- 
periments of Weiske (Chem. Central Blat., 1870, page 531, and 1872, page 
409) swine, like the herbivora, digest over 50 per cent. of this crude fiber. 
In a paper entitled ‘“‘ Chemical Investigations into the Composition of 
Wood,” published in Kolbe’s Jour. Prak. Chem. Band 19, p. 146, Th. 
Thomsen, of Copenhagen, enters upon a discussion of the above ques- 
tion. He experimented upon this substance, extracted from wood by a 
solution of sodic hydrate, after previously exhausting the wood with 
ether, alcohol, water, and ammonia. 
Payan in 1839 had already shown -that fiber obtained after treatment 
with the above neutral solvents contained 54 per cent. of carbon, while 
pure cellulose from cotton or pith contained only 44 per cent. This 
variation was attributed to a so-called incrusting substance, which, 
according to Schulze’s method with HNO, could be removed. 
Some chemists, however, considered this incrusting substance as a mix- 
ture of several substances; while others, as Schulze (1857) and Erd- 
mann (Annal. Chem. & Pharm., Suppl. B and p. 223, 1867), gave it a for- 
