PRESERVATION OF FORAGE 33 



The actual water content of a plant is easily determined 

 by laboratory methods, care being taken to weigh the 

 green plant under conditions that do not permit of loss 

 by evaporation before weighing. The hay yield can be 

 approximated from the water-free weight by arbitrarily 

 adding 20 per cent. Such estimates are more nearly 

 accurate than those obtained in the field by obtaining 

 first the green weight and later the hay weight, as the 

 moisture content of both vary greatly under field condi- 

 tions. The discrepancies that thus occur in field weights, 

 green and dry, are sometimes very large. 



The relation between dry weights and green weights of 

 29 varieties of red clover grown at the Ontario Agri- 

 cultural College, show an average ratio of 1 : 6. The widest 

 ratio of any variety is 1 : 8.1 and the narrowest, 1 : 4.8. 



Jordan at the Maine Experiment Station found that 

 timothy cut when the heads were beginning to appear 

 lost, on an average, 75 per cent of water in curing into hay ; 

 when beginning to bloom, the loss was 66 per cent ; when 

 past bloom, 57 per cent. 



At the same station the green and air-dried yield of 

 29 strains of clover in duplicate plots was weighed. The 

 shrinkage in drying ranged from 68 per cent in one plot 

 of Bohemian red clover to 82 per cent in a strain from 

 Denmark. The average shrinkage was 73 to 75 per cent. 

 Very leafy plants shrink more than those less leafy. 



The following relations appear between green weight 

 and dry weight, in pounds per acre, of various crops 

 grown at the Pennsylvania Experiment Station. As 

 will be noticed, the water contents of the crops re- 

 ported upon differ greatly. The low water content of 

 spring vetch in contrast with that of sand vetch is es- 

 pecially surprising : 



