OP TENNESSEE. 27 



tive values as flesh, fat and heat producers. These analyses 

 were conducted with that consumate skill and patience 

 which characterized all of Prof. Way's work, and their re- 

 sult stands to-day as the best authority of the laboratory on 

 the values of the different grasses. 



Between the writings of Sinclair and Way a revolution 

 had taken place in chemistry. Organic or physiological 

 chemistry had developed relations between the mineral, 

 vegetable and animal kingdoms, not even suspected in the 

 time of the earlier writer, and, far from being fully under- 

 stood even at the present time. It was this chemical pro- 

 gress that induced Prof. Way to undertake his work. He 

 was fully aware, and was careful to state, that his analyses 

 were only so many facts, to be taken along with many 

 other known and unknown facts in physiology, before a 

 true estimate could be formed and a final conclusion ar- 

 rived at. 



Next in order came the experiments of Messrs. Lawes 

 and Gilbert, of Rothamsted, England, which were designed 

 to ascertain "The Effects of different Manures on the Mixed 

 Herbage of Grass-land." The experiments extended over 

 a period of seven years, and were conducted with every 

 conceivable caution and care, and with a minuteness un- 

 equaled in any other experiments. The results of these 

 experiments, while they' modify in many points, and in 

 some overturn, the conclusions of both Sinclair and Way, 

 on the whole add value to their works by furnishing a bet- 

 ter interpretation of their facts. To the farmer the experi- 

 ments of Lawes and Gilbert are invaluable. 



In England, in the meanwhile, quite a number of books 

 and pamphlets had been printed on the grasses by botanists, 

 agriculturists and seedsmen, ' all of more or less value, but 

 none of material importance to the American farmer. 



In America, too, books have been written on grasses, 

 one entitled " Geasses and Forage Plants" — "A prac- 

 tical treatise, comprising their natural history; comparative 



