STRIKING CONTRASTS. 225 



It will be noticed that those grasses which come 

 earliest into flower are generally the most succulent, 

 though this is not uniformly the case. 



It will be seen, also, that the sweet-scented vernal 

 grass and the meadow foxtail contain but 20 parts in 

 100 of dry, solid matter, while the yellow oat and the 

 downy oat grasses contain nearly double, or about 40 

 per cent. This difference, though of no great import- 

 ance in itself, is of some interest in showing that, to 

 judge of the quantity of hay a given burden of grass 

 will produce, it is necessary to consider the species of 

 grass which mainly composes the meadow, since it is 

 evident that a given weight of one variety might make 

 double the quantity of the same weight of another. 



But the chief interest of the table is to be found in 

 columns three, four, and five. The albuminous or flesh- 

 forming principles will be found to be double in some 

 instances what they are in others ; and, in accordance 

 with the principles laid down in the explanatory re- 

 marks which precede the tables, some would appear to 

 be more than twice as nutritive as others; but it should 

 be borne in mind that these differences depend in part 

 on the variations in the quantity of water, and that the 

 real differences will appear more apparent in the dried 

 specimens. 



A glance at Table VII. will show that the percentage 

 of water in the artificial grasses, as taken from the field, 

 is greater than that of the natural grasses under the 

 same circumstances. The percentage of albuminous 

 or flesh-forming principles is generally, though by no 

 means uniformly, less than that of our best grasses. 

 Compare red clover, for instance, with Timothy, and 

 the first striking peculiarity is the difference in the 

 amount of water; in the one case exceeding 81 per 

 cent., leaving but 19 per cent, of solid matter, from 



