Composition and Nutritive Value of Straw. 5 



much propriety flesh or muscle forming principles. As the 

 animal organism has not the power of constructing these com- 

 binations, so essential to the support of life, from other materials, 

 although the latter may contain nitrogen, it is evident that all 

 good vegetable food must contain a fair proportion of albuminous 

 substances. Except in the case of pea-haulm, the proportion of 

 albuminous matter in straw is not large. It varies considerably 

 in straw of the same kind, according to the state of maturity in 

 which corn is harvested, it being larger in straw not fully ripe. 

 The average percentage cannot be precisely determined, but on 

 the whole we may say that well-harvested straw of good feeding 

 quality contains from 2 to 3 per cent., and inferior samples from 

 1J to If per cent, of albuminous substances. In some cases the 

 amount exceeds 3 and even 4 per cent. 



3. The non-nitrogenized substances are as follows : 



a. Oil, fatty, and waxy matters, with more or less 



chlorophyle. 



b. Sugar. 



c. Gum and mucilage. 



d. Extractive matters, arid occasionally bitter principles. 



e. Cellulose ; and, lastly, 

 f. Woody fibre. 



In some published analyses starch is mentioned as a consti- 

 tuent of straw, but this is a mistake. Neither the straw of our 

 cereals nor that of peas or beans contains any starch a fact 

 which any one may readily ascertain if he will either apply 

 tincture of iodine directly to a fragment of straw ; or, better still, 

 if he boil down a quantity with water and add a few drops of 

 tincture of iodine to the perfectly cold and clean filtered decoc- 

 tion, when the non-appearance of the characteristic blue colour 

 of iodide of starch will indicate the absence of every trace of 

 starch. 



It is much to be regretted that writers on agricultural matters, 

 and even persons who by the public at large are considered 

 scientific men, often employ distinct chemical terms in a very 

 loose manner, and that they frequently leave the sure ground of 

 ascertained facts, on which alone in chemistry opinions can be 

 based, to launch into the realms of fancy and unauthorised 

 assumption. When it is stated in many published analyses that 

 straw contains some 15 to 20 per cent, of starch, the practical 

 men experienced in the fattening properties of barley-meal and 

 similar starch-containing food, on comparing that experience 

 with the results obtained by straw-feeding, cannot but have their 

 confidence in chemistry greatly shaken. 



Again, misconceptions appear to exist in the minds of some 

 of the advocates of straw as to the amount of fat and oil which 



