Straw- Chaff for Feeding Purposes. 
89 
the palatable condition which is conferred upon the straw in the 
process ol iennentation. The prepared straw-chaff, kindly sent to 
me by Mr. Jonas, had all the agreeable smell which characterises 
good green meadow-hay, and a hot infusion with water produced 
a liquid which could hardly be distinguished from hay-tea. 
Although fermented chaff resembles hay so much in taste 
and smell, it need hardly be stated that the latter is more 
valuable for feeding purposes. However, the differences in the 
nutritive properties of meadow-hay and straw-chaff made from 
rather under-ripe wheat-straw, prepared and fermented in ac- 
cordance with Mr. Jonas's directions is not so great as might 
be imagined by some, A little cake ground into meal and 
sprinkled over the chaff would go far to obliterate the differ- 
ence in the feeding quality of the two kinds of chaff. 
1 would particularly recommend for that purpose a cake rich 
in albuminous compounds. Green German rape-cake or decorti- 
cated cotton-cake, added to the straw-chaff in but small quan- 
tities will bring up the percentage of albuminous compounds to 
what it is in good meadow-hay. Best decorticated cotton-cake 
contains about 40 per cent., green rape-cake about 33 per cent., 
and the finest linseed-cake from 30 to 32 per cent, of albuminous 
compounds. About 2 cwts. of decorticated cotton-cake ground 
into meal and added to one ton of fermented straw-chaff, pie- 
suming it to have always the same composition as the sample 
analysed by me, I find constitutes a mixture which agrees closely 
in composition with good meadow-hay. 
In order to enable others to compound a mixed food from 
straw-chaff, resembling in composition good meadow-hay, I have 
placed in the following Table the analyses of ordinary wheat- 
straw, of the fermented sample, and the mean results of 25 
analyses of common meadow-hay. 
CoMrosiiioxs or 
Common Meadow- 
Hay. 
Fermented and 
. Prepared 
Straw-chatf. 
Wheat 
Straw-chaff. 
Oil and fatty matter 
'Albuminous compouuds (^flesh-'l 
forming matters) .. ../ 
Sugar, guni and other soluble! 
organic compounds . . . . / 
Indigestible ■woody fibre'l 
Mineral matter (asli) .. 
* Containing nitrogen . . 
U-Gl 
2-5G 
8-44 
4i-o: 
27-16 
G- IG 
7-7G 
1-60 
4-19 
10-16 
35-74 
34-54 
G-OI 
13-33 
1- 74 
2- 93 
4-26 
19-40 
54-13 
4-21 
100-00 
100-00 
100-00 
1-35 
•67 
•17 
