126 THE FEEDING OF ANIMALS 



a decrease, either of the more soluble compounds or of 

 the tender tissues. (See Par. 306.) 



184. Influence of the conditions and methods of 

 preserving fodders. — ^In comparing the conditions and 

 methods of preserving fodders in their relation to digesti- 

 bility, we may safely rest upon the general statement 

 that when, for any cause, leaching occiu-s or fermenta- 

 tions set in, digestibility is depressed. The explanation 

 of this statement is that those compounds of the plant 

 which are entirely soluble in the digestive fluids, notably 

 the sugars, are the ones wholly or partially removed or 

 destroyed by leaching or fermentations, while the more 

 insoluble bodies remain unaffected. When, therefore, 

 hay is cured imder adverse conditions, such as long-con- 

 tinued rain, digestibility is decreased, and the same 

 effect is inevitable from the changes which occur in a 

 fermenting mass, such as a mow of wet hay, a pile of 

 com stalks or the contents of a silo. Experimental 

 evidence of the truth of these statements is not wanting. 

 German digestion trials with alfalfa and esparsette, 

 green, carefully dried, cured in the ordinary way, fer- 

 mented after partial drying and as silage, show a grad- 

 ually decreasing digestibility from the first condition to 

 the last. A single American experiment, comparing the 

 same fodder both green and as sUage, gives testimony in 

 the same direction. On the other hand, field-ciu:ed corn 

 fodder, according to nine out of eleven American experi- 

 ments, is considerably less digestible than silage coming 

 from the same soiu-ce, although the results of field curing 

 vary greatly according to the conditions of exposure. 

 Here it is largely a question of the relative loss by fermen- 

 tation in the two cases, and it is to be expected that the 

 outcome would not be wholly one way. 



