COMPOSITION AND NUTEITIVE VALUE OF 

 STRAW. 



BOTH Mr. Mechi and Mr. Jrlorsfall have done good service to 

 agriculture by the publication of their experience in feeding and 

 fattening cattle with food, a considerable portion of which con- 

 sisted of straw-chaff. In whatever light Mr. Mechi's experience 

 in fattening cattle or Mr. Horsfall's dairy management may be 

 regarded, the merit cannot be denied to these gentlemen of 

 having succeeded in directing the attention of the British farmer 

 to the use of straw as an economical feeding-material. 



Many farmers form much too low an estimate of the feed- 

 ing value of every kind of straw, except pea-haulm. On the 

 other hand, the views of others respecting the nutriment con- 

 tained in straw are so unmistakeably exaggerated that, with some 

 degree of justice, they are made a laughing-stock at the market- 

 table. The main anxiety of the first-named class seems to be how 

 to tread into manure all the straw grown on the farm ; that of the 

 second, how to stuff stock with all the straw at their disposal : 

 the creed of the former being that neither little nor much will 

 do their cattle any good, whilst the latter hold that any appro- 

 priation of it for litter is an intolerable waste. 



The sober-minded, observant, and intelligent agriculturist, 

 however, knows full well that whilst wheat, oat, and barley 

 straw when cut into chaff possess a certain feeding value, par- 

 ticularly when this bulky material is combined with some con- 

 centrated or more readily digestible food, they are not the less 

 essential on the generality of farms to the production of good 

 farmyard manure. On most farms, indeed, the want of straw 

 is felt much more on account of the difficulty of preserving the 

 most valuable constituents of the liquid and solid excrements 

 which arises from an insufficient supply of litter, than because 

 an economical substitute for this kind of bulky food cannot be 

 found. 



Were it the object of this paper to discuss specially the use of 

 straw as a manure, or rather a manure-producing and preserving 

 agent, I might show that on most farms it is not only the 

 cheapest but also the most efficient and valuable of the bulky 

 materials at command for converting the excrementitious matters 

 of our domestic animals into good yard-manure. But at> I 

 intend to direct the attention of the reader more particularly to 



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