240 Transactions of the American Institute. 



Mr. S. Edwards Todd responded as follows: 



"Hay is dried grass. In the grass that will make one ton of hay 

 there is usually, when the grass is mowed at the proper time, more 

 than two tons of water, which must be got out of the leaves and 

 stems before the hay can be safely stored in a stack or barn. The 

 whole process of making hay consists in simply separating the 

 water contained in the gum, sugar and starch in the stems and 

 leaves of the grass. Making hay is nothing more nor less than 

 saving herbs for botanical or medicinal purposes on a magnificent 

 scale. Ask a botanical physician how to save valuable plants for 

 medicinal purposes. His answer will be: 'Dry the stems and the 

 leaves in the shade;' or evaporate the water in them. Ask old grand- 

 mother Grimes how to save catnip for her pussycat next winter, 

 and she will tell you to dry out the water in the stems and leaves. 

 Ask a fai'mer's boy who is as ignorant of the principles of natural 

 philosophy as a Kamskatkan, why he toils, and tugs and sweats all 

 day in the burning sun, tedding, turning, shaking and stirring the 

 new-mown hay, and the guileless youth will tell you, ' to dry out 

 the water, so that the hay will not heat and spoil in the mow.' Let 

 the water be separated from the semi-fluid and semi-plastie starch, 

 sugar and gum in 'the grass, and those substances may be stored in 

 the hay-mow, where they will furnish about as much nutriment to 

 domestic animals as if the grass had been consumed in its green 

 state. 



"When a ton of hay is half cured, there still remain barrels of 

 water in a single load; and that water must come out, or the hay 

 will be injured, or perhaps heated and spoiled. Many a load of 

 hay is stored in the barn in which there is more than a barrel of 

 water. Indeed, hay may be tolerably well cured, and yet three 

 hundred pounds of water may be afterward dried out by a little 

 exposure to the sun and wind. If stored in the mow, the heat that 

 will be generated by this water will expel every particle of 

 moisture before winter, to the great injury of the hay. And yet 

 some wise (?) philosophers, who never made a pound of hay in 

 all their lives, talk confidently of absorbing a barrel of water by the 

 application of four quarts of salt, or a peck of quick-lime spread 

 over the mow. And, only a few days ago, a chemist, claiming dis- 

 tinction, gave it as his opmion that he confidently believes ' the 

 time is not far in the future when hay will be cured by an applica- 

 tion of pulverized charcoal ! ' A farmer might, with the same 

 propriety, mingle salt or lime, or pulverized charcoal, among half- 



