410 
Experiments on the Feeding of Stock. 
normal condition as to dryness, but when dried after having been 
swollen by water, it does not recover its former hulh. The per- 
centage of water in the 20 specimens examined varied from 
12-20 to 16-51, 
The author had supposed that by drying the grain he might 
increase the weight per bushel almost at pleasure ; the result 
showed the contrary. For when Albert wheat, having 16*11 per 
cent, of moisture, the density 1398, and weight 815-3 (=65 lbs. 
per bushel), was so dried that the water was reduced to 7-24 per 
cent., the density was increased to 1420, but the weight per litre 
diminished to 797-8 (= 63-6 lbs. per bushel). 
And again, white Russian wheat, having moisture 15 per cent., 
density 1378, weight 816, when reduced to 7*7 per cent, of moisture, 
had density 1400, and weight 803. Trials made at different stages 
of the process showed that the density constantly increases as the 
proportion of v/afler diminishes. The grain undergoes a manifest 
contraction, but this is not in proportion to the amount of water 
lost ; therefore the actual weight of the] measure decreases per- 
ceptibly with the loss of the water. 
The effects of moistening grain were more remarkable. Some 
Spalding wheat, when spread in a thin layer and exposed to air 
saturated with moisture at the ordinary temperature, gave the 
following results : — 
Apparent 
AVeight 
per litre. 
Weight 
per Bushel. 
Wheafr in its natural state 
14-69 I 1382 I 7S2'-3 | 
Wheat after absorbing moisture. 
15-82 
lG-96 
19-29 
31-17 
1375 
13G0 
r3- 
771-1 
739-0 
671-9 
lbs. 
62-43 
58*96 
53-65 
After being thus saturated, the wheat, when exposed to the 
open air in a thin bed, lost in two days exactly the extra 16-48 
per cent, of water which it had taken up, and so returned to its 
normal state of moisture ; but its specific gravity remained fixed 
at 1361 instead of 1382, and its weight per bushel was 59-1 lbs. 
instead of 62*4 lbs. Grain, therefore, when accidentally swollcn- 
by moisture, does not upon drying return to its original bulk, 
but remains distended, and loses both in density and in weight 
per bushel. 
" It is probable that corn much wetted in the course of the 
harvest undergoes some such a change as this experiment ex- 
