FEEDING OF HUNTEES G7 



hay. You should learn the different grasses, 

 which are a guide to the quality of land on which 

 the hay has been grown. You can get very good 

 sample cases from Sutton, of Beading, which will 

 enable you to identify them all, and if you care to 

 take the trouble, you can collect them for yourself 

 in a book, sorting them, according to Fitz-Wygram, 

 into 'Very good,' 'Good,' 'Bad,' &c. If you are buying, 

 as you should do, straight from a farmer, I think 

 you will find it the best plan not to buy the whole 

 stack, but to pay a higher price for him to cut and 

 deliver none but the best. The outsideswill be no 

 use to you unless you are farming, and it is some- 

 times rather difficult to judge of a stack until it 

 has been cut up and trussed. If you can, find out 

 when the hay was cut, and whether it was well 

 made. Some farmers put off cutting their hay 

 until far too late ; this you should be able to judge 

 by the hay having seeded, and the • absence of 

 flowers in it. Others, through want of sufficient 

 labour, leave it lying about a great deal too long, 

 and do not turn it sufficiently. Under these 

 conditions, however good the land and the grasses 

 composing the hay, it will never be good hunter 

 hay. Besides looking and smelling right, first class 

 hay should have a feel about it. When gripped })y 

 the hands the stalks of the grasses should feel as 

 if they were stalks, and not soft and flabby rubbish. 



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