316 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



things. Some persons have thought that enough heat is de- 

 veloped to kill the germs of hurtful fungi which may have ex- 

 isted upon the grass, and that the hay is thus protected from 

 moldiness and from putrefaction. More probably it is the copi- 

 ous evolution of carbonic acid during the .fermentation and the 

 lactic acid formed which hinder the development of the mi- 

 crodemes that cause putrefaction. 



Brown hay that has been properly prepared is greedily eaten 

 by cattle, and readily digested and utilized by them. Since the 

 fermentation destroys a larger proportion of the carbohydrates of 

 the grass than of the albuminoids, it follows that brown hay 

 must be a somewhat more highly nitrogenized food than ordi- 

 nary green hay. 



There is a certain analogy between brown hay and black tea. 

 Black tea is made from the same kind of leaves as green tea, 

 and the leaves are plucked at the same stage of their growth. 

 But for making black tea the leaves are fermented in heaps 

 before drying them, while for green tea the leaves are dried 

 directly. 



The real justification for making brown hay is that the farmer 

 becomes independent of climate, and that even very weedy grass 

 may be saved in this way in the worst of seasons. Much labor 

 is required, of course, in raking up and carrying the heavy 

 green grass. The loss of dry organic matter in making brown 

 hay is large. Probably it is never less than 14% or 15% of that 

 originally contained in the grass, and the proportion is fre- 

 quently much larger than this. 



Management in the Mow. The hay mow is a hard 

 place, especially when one is rolling in tough alfalfa 

 at the rate of a ton every ten minutes. Therefore 

 it needs good men and plenty of them. In order to 

 have the hay cure nicely in the mow it ought all to 

 be moved, or nearly all. The practice of letting the 

 hay pile up in the middle as it falls from the car- 

 rier, rolling to each side, is a pernicious one. It 

 makes the hay very hard to get out of the mow and 

 there will 'be more mold and damage in the middle 

 than there would if the hay was kept level in the 



