GRASSES FOR PASTURES AN"D MEADOWS. 77 



up the chief solid substance of milk, viz., the caseine, and 

 also the large proportion of one per cent of fat which 

 goes to furnish the cream of the milk. Hence it is that 

 fresh young pasture in early June — the ^' Queen month " 

 of the year, when the meadows are in all the glory of 

 their fresh and tender verdure — produces the most and the 

 finest butter of any season. Tlie dairyman then should' 

 take pains to provide a succession of such tender and 

 nutritious feeding, by growing a succession of grasses in 

 his fields which will afford the needed aliment for the 

 best and largest product from his cows. 



The same remark applies equally to the grasses grown 

 for hay, and in making hay the dairyman should be 

 guided by the knowledge conveyed in this regard by the 

 figures above given. The making of hay is then a sub- 

 ject to be well studied from this point of view. It is not 

 simply a mechanical operation — the mere cutting and 

 drying of the grass — but a chemical one, in which the 

 character of the grass is changed. Grass contains a 

 small proportion of fiber as compared with the other car- 

 bonaceous matter ; but the reverse is true of hay. The 

 carbonaceous elements of grass consist of woody fiber, 

 starch, gum and sugar. These consist of carbon and 

 water, and hence, as has been said, are called carbo-hy- 

 drates. These substances, which appear to any ordinary 

 person so unlike m character, are really identical to 

 the chemist, as they are all composed of precisely the 

 same quantities and proportions of carbon and water. 

 The chemist may take the woody fiber, sawdust, cotton- 

 wool or any other vegetable tissue, and by a certain pro- 

 cess change it into starch. He can change the starch 

 into gum and the gum into sugar, These changes occur 

 m plants. But the chemist cannot reverse this order 

 and take sugar and bring it back to the condition of gum 

 or starch or woody fiber. His art is powerless to make 

 these transformations. But T^ature can produce them and ' 



