HAY MAKING IN RAINY COUNTRIES. 315 



out the large mass and no doubt destroys the germs 

 of mold as well. 



Brown Hay. This heating in the mow destroys 

 the green color of alfalfa and makes it brown or 

 yellow. It does not therefore appear so attractive 

 yet most animals eat it all the more greedily for 

 this heating that it has undergone. It has not really 

 been injured except that it has lost a little in weight. 

 Storer very nicely says of this brown hay : 



Besides the plan of having hay undergo in the making some 

 slight fermentation, in connection with the true sweating, there 

 is another much more emphatic conception put in practice in 

 the process of making brown hay, so called. This is a process 

 which is dependent upon decompositions that are a good deal 

 more incipient; but which has nevertheless found favor in many 

 districts, especially in countries where the weather can never 

 be depended upon for making hay by the usual process. 



In making brown hay, most of the water of the grass is 

 driven off by the heat of fermentation, only about a third of the 

 original moisture being dried off by sun and air in the first 

 place. Far from seeking to bring the hay into contact with the 

 air, the chief care in this process is to exclude air from the hay. 

 For making brown hay, grass that has been wilted to such an 

 extent that the leaves have shriveled, although the stalks are 

 still plump, is heaped up either in rather large masses or in 

 smaller heaps that have been trodden in such wise that the 

 air shall be well-nigh or altogether excluded from the interior 

 of the heap. Under these conditions, fermentation soon sets 

 in and proceeds with a good degree of regularity. In the course 

 of it the heap becomes very hot, often as hot as the temperature 

 of boiling water, the hay takes on a deep brown color, and gives 

 off an odor of caramel or burnt sugar. 



In point of fact, some of the constituents of the hay undergo 

 the well-known fermentation which chemists distinguish as the 

 alcoholic, the lactic and the butyric; in other words, a consid- 

 erable part of the carbohydrates in the hay, notably the sugar 

 and the dextrin, are changed to alcohol, carbonic acid and lactic 

 and butyric acids. Of course, a considerable proportion of the 

 carbohydrates are destroyed by these changes. The large amount 

 of heat that is developed comes from the destruction of these 



