Coin-position and Ntitritioe Value of Straw. 
385 
or partial analyses should make exaggerated statements respect- 
ing tlie high feeding value of straw. In most of these analyses 
we find the components grouped together in the following 
manner : — 
1. Water, 
2. Nitrogenised substances. 
3. Non-nitrogonised substances. 
4. Mineral substances (ash). 
1. The amount of water in well-harvested straw when the 
corn is stacked varies from 25 to 3(i per cent. After stacking a 
good deal of water evaporates, and the amount soon sinks to 
1(3 or 18 per cent. Straw being a very hygroscopic substance is 
much damper in autumn and spring than in summer, or in a 
wet than in a dry month. I have found as little as 8 per cent, 
and as much as 1 9 per cent, of water in straw of the same kind 
taken at different times from the outside of the same stack. 
Making every allowance for variations depending upon the state 
of the atmosphere and on the age of the straw, 16 per cent, may 
be taken as fairly representing its average proportion of water. 
2. The group of nitrogenised substances includes albumen 
and vegetable casein — two compounds soluble in water — and 
vegetable fibrin and other albuminous compounds, which are in- 
soluble in water, but readily rendered soluble by weak alkaline 
solutions. All the nitrogenised compounds contain about l(i per 
cent, of nitrogen, and, besides carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, 
small quantities of sulphur and phosphorus. They resemble 
each other so closely in composition and properties as to be 
scarcely distinguishable. As the type of this interesting class of 
compounds we may regard vegetable albumen — a substance 
analogous if not identical in properties and composition with the 
white of eggs. On account of the close resemblance of vegetable 
casein, fibrin, &c., to albumen, the compounds of this group 
are often called albuminous matter. By a simple chemical pro- 
cess all furnish a substance which its discoverer, Professor Mulder, 
named protein. According to this illustrious chemist, albu- 
minous substances are combinations of protein with small quan- 
tities of sulphur and phosphorus, and hence they are termed 
frequently protein compounds. Not only are these vegetable 
substances nearly identical in composition and properties, but 
they likewise resemble so intimately animal casein, albumen, 
and fibrin, or those materials of which the flesh and blood of 
animals principally consist, that they have been called with 
much propriety flesh or muscle forming principles. As the 
animal organism has not the power of constructing these com- 
binations, so essential to the support of life, from other materials, 
although the latter may contain nitrogen, it is evident that all 
