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 fermentaticn 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 ear- 
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 levei in the 
