MOISTURE CONTENT AND SHRINKAGE OF FORAGE, Pep’ 
TaBLE V.—Comparison of sun-dried and shade-dried samples of green material of alfalfa 
and of a mixture of tall oat-grass and orchard grass. 
Moisture, | Moisture, | Moisture 
Place. Crop. Treatment. original air-dry lost in 
material. material. | air drying. 
Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. 
Arlington Farm, Va....| Tall oat-grass and or- | Cured in shade. .| 71.540. 268 | 17.440. 145 | 65.5140.353 
chard grass. 
HD ORS serene ie ee eee ee (AV SRG e ee A Cured in sun....| 70.8+ .391 | 19.8+ .204 | 63.5+ .558 
Chico, Cal. NE a aes PAN alia wes Ss eh Fe ee Cured in shade. .| 75.9+ .267 | 11.64 .486 | 72.74 .314 
Bowen, at os GOn eer ae ee Cured in sun....| 74.0+ .061 | 10.74 .180 | 70.84 .120 
1 The detailed record of these samples is given in Table XII. Samples 549, 550, 551, 554, 555, 556, and 557 
were cured in the shade; Nos. 552, 553, 559, and 569 were cured in the sun. 
The differences indicated in Table V are too small to warrant any 
conclusions, even if the results at the two stations agreed. It would 
seem, therefore, that so far as the moisture content of the air-dry 
material is concerned it makes little difference whether the samples 
are dried in the sun or in the shade. The greater shrinkage in the 
shade-dried samples was perhaps due to loss of dry material on 
account of fermentation, which might well be greater in green ma- 
terial dried in the shade than that dried in the sun on account of the 
more favorable conditions for the development of fermentation 
organisms. 
VALUE OF CORRECTING FIELD WEIGHTS BY THE SAMPLE METHOD. 
The work so far done in correcting forage yields by samples makes 
it apparent that the method is of greatest importance with crops 
that lose their moisture slowly, such as the sorghums and Sudan 
grass. It is also valuable in comparative work where the treatment 
accorded different plats of the same crop differs widely, or in a com- 
parison of varieties that lose moisture at different rates. The use of 
this method of correcting yields by samples, if it should become 
general, would be of much value in standardizing agronomic data 
obtained in different countries and different parts of the United 
States, where conditions affecting a crop during the growing and 
harvesting period differ greatly. | 
The use of the sample method and the differences which may be 
expected from corrections made in this way are well illustrated by 
the following results obtained on the forage-crop field stations in 
the regular plat work. 
Sorghum.—At Chico, Cal., the corrected weight of sorghum, as 
determined by the use of air-dried samples, was 41.6 to 47 per cent 
less than the weights taken in the field at the time of stacking the 
crop. This fodder was not as dry at the time of taking the field 
weights as is desirable, yet it may fairly have been called field cured 
in the ordinary meaning of the term. At Hays, Kans., the corrected 
weights, as computed from air-dried samples, average 20 to 30 per cent 
