CHAPTEE XH. 



LEGUMINOUS PLANTS FOE GREEN FORAGE AND HAY. 



Digestible nutrients and fertilizing constituents. 



284. Concerning legumes. The prominent characteristic of 

 the true grasses, including the corn plant, is their large content 

 of carbohydrates with a meager amount of protein; in the legumes 

 we have a relatively large proportion of protein to carbohydrates 

 and fat. Each of these great groups of agricultural plants, then, 

 presents to the feeder what the other lacks, and so are comple- 

 mentary to each other. 



The highest use of the corn plant is bearing grain, with a large 

 secondary place in supplying forage. In the legumes we have 

 for the most part forage plants only, the seeds being generally too 

 small to be useful for food, though beans and peas are an excep- 

 tion. Another marked difference between the legumes and the 

 grasses, including the cereals, is their after or residual effect upon 



