VALUE OF DIFFERENT FEEDS. 237 



The explanation of such differences is, in truth, easy 

 enough. The experiments were tried in different soils and 

 seasons. Variations in the latter, every one kpows, highly 

 affect the comparative nutritiousness of vegetable products. 

 And unfortunately, too, the standard taken, hay, is the subject 

 of special variations. To say nothing of the natural difference 

 in the nutritiousness of the various kinds of grasses, which, 

 when cut and cured, are termed "meadow hay," we know 

 that the same kinds grown in a wet or diy season cut a 

 week earlier or a week later cured rapidly in the sun, 

 slowly in the cock, or slower still and with difficulty during 

 wet, cloudy weather vary very essentially in quality and 

 nutriment. Take, for a single example, the main meadow 

 grass of the northern portions of the United States, viz., 

 timothy, (Phleum pratense.) According to the Woburn 

 experiments,* 64 drachms of it green give, when cut and 

 cured in the flower, 2 dr. 2 gr. ; in the seed, 5 dr. 3 gr. ; 

 latter-math, 2 dr. Thus, a difference of two weeks in the 

 time of making timothy hay might cause a difference of more 

 than 100 per cent, in the amount of nutriment it contains ! f 



While it is unfortunate that no unvarying standard can be 

 obtained, or fixed set of conditions agreed upon and observed, 

 in the trial of this class of agricultural experiments, still there 

 is quite as much accord in their results as we are accustomed 

 to find in the opinions of sound, intelligent, practical farmers 

 in regard to any of the experimental facts of farming, which 

 they have been familiar with all their lives. We do not 

 disregard the opinions of such men because they differ. And 

 if we find them all pointing towards the same conclusion, we 

 accept that conclusion as one beyond reasonable doubt. This 

 is the light in which the statements contained in the Table of 

 Nutritive Equivalents, on page 235, should be regarded. 

 When, for example, scientific theory declares that clover hay, 

 pound for pound, contains more nutriment than meadow hay, 

 and when out of six careful and intelligent practical experi- 

 ments, three also find it more nutritious, and the other three 

 equally so, we are bound, as reasonable men, unless we have 



* Made some years since by Sinclair, on soils best adapted to each kind of grass, 

 on the estate of the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn, England. 



t But to prevent mistakes let me add, that it makes no snch difference in the 

 practical value of timothy as sheep fodder. In the seed it is a dry, tough, unpalatable 

 feed for them and no good sheep farmer intentionally cuts it in that state for his 

 flocks. This, however, in no wise affects the particular fact under consideration. It 

 is to be presumed that timothy composed no inconsiderable share of the meadow hay 

 assumed as a standard by Block, Petri, Von Thaer, Boussinganlt, etc. but in 

 neither instance are we informed whether it was cut in the flower or in the seed. 



