4 BULLETIN 353, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
or windrow and 500 pounds of green forage were taken immediately 
after cutting and placed on a canvas to prevent loss of weight other 
than moisture. When the forage on the canvas had become suffi- 
ciently dry, these bulk lots were placed in burlap bags and kept in 
an open shelter until they ceased to lose weight. 
Composite samples, 2, 4, 6, and 8 pounds in size, of field-cured 
forage, part from the outside and part from the inside of shocks, were 
secured at the same time and from the same material as the 100- 
pound lot before mentioned. These samples were weighed at once 
and put aside to become perfectly air dry. Samples, 4, 8, 12, and 
16 pounds in size, of green forage were taken immediately after cutting 
and were treated similarly. Samples were replicated five or six 
times to check the variation due tosampling. Allsamples were taken 
at the stage of maturity generally recognized as the proper cutting 
time for each crop. The samples were kept in a shelter and weighed 
at intervals until they ceased to lose weight. They were then shipped 
to Washington, D. C., for the purpose of reducing them to a moisture- 
free state in the drying oven. The intention was to secure samples 
of timothy at both New London, Ohio, and Arlington Farm, Va., so 
that each crop would be handled at two stations, but an unfavorable 
season caused a failure of the timothy crop at Arlington Farm, and 
it was found necessary to substitute there the mixture of tall oat-grass 
and orchard grass. 
In Table I an attempt has been made to arrange the data so as to 
make the conclusions to be derived from them as clear as possible. 
Column 1 contains the number under which the identity of the sample 
was preserved from the time it was prepared until it was finally 
weighed from the drying oven. 
Column 2 gives the original weight of the sample, whether green 
or field cured. 
Column 3 gives the weight of the sample at a date between the time 
it was prepared and the date when it was considered air dry. This 
column is intended to show about what time is required for each 
sample to lose most of its moisture, that is, when it was drier than 
field cured, but in most cases not yet air dry. This column is blank 
in sections A and B because no weights were obtained between the 
date of cutting and the date when thesamples were completely air dry. 
Column 4 carries the air-dry weight of the sample. In some cases 
this was the weight obtained just before the sample was placed in the 
drying oven, but where an earlier weighing made at the field station 
showed the sample to be practically as dry at that time, the earlier 
weight is given. 
Column 5 gives the weight of the samples oven dry and represents 
the dry matter contained in each sample as nearly as it can be deter- 
mined in an ordinary oven. 
