Straw-Chaff for Feeding Purposes. 
8.3 
tnuch as 61'29 per cent, of pure sugar, in addition to flesh- 
forming matters, readily digestible fibre, and bone and blood- 
forming mineral constituents. Now, what description of food 
approaching in composition to the dry substance of beet, it may 
be asked, can be bought at 4/. 17s. 6</. a ton ? The answer to this 
question is conclusive. There is no kind of food at all approach- 
ing in nutritive and fattening properties the solid substance of 
beets, of which 1 ton can be laid down at the farmer's door, at 
anything like the price at which he sells 1 ton of the dry feeding 
matter of beets to the sugar-manufacturer. On farms, therefore, 
on which not sufficient food can be raised to meet the require- 
ments of the fattening stock, and where considerable sums of 
money are spent in the purchase of oilcake, meal, and other dry 
food, it would be folly on the part of the farmer to sell beets at 
1/. a ton, and to pay the cost of cartage to the factory, which 
cannot be less than 5s. per ton on an average. 
Beetroot-sugar manufacturers or distillers, in Continental States 
where no ready and profitable sale for fat stock exists, will have, 
it strikes me, far less difficulty to induce farmers to grow the 
beets required to keep the factory at full work than in many parts 
of England, where farmers find it profitable not only to con- 
sume the food raised on the farm but to buy additional food for 
the fattening stock, and where always a much better price can be 
realized for well-fattened meat than on the Continent. 
Laboratory, 11, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, E.G., 
January, 1871. 
IV. — On the Best Mode of preparing Straw-Chaff for Feeding 
Purposes. By Dr. Augustus Voelcker, F.R.S. 
In Volume VI. Part 1, 1870, of this Journal, Mr. Samuel Jonas, 
of Chrishall Grange, Saffion Walden, gave an interesting 
account of a plan of preparing straw-chaff for feeding purposes, 
and preserving it for winter use, which he found extremely 
useful in practice. 
The peculiarity of Mr. Jonas's plan consists in the use of 
a small quantity of green rye, or green tares, as a fermenting 
agent. 
Mr. Jonas, who for many years has been a great advocate for 
the consumption of a large portion of straw-chaff for feeding 
purposes, uses a 12 horse-power engine, by Hornsby, for 
threshing, dressing, and bagging the corn ready for market, and 
