Safety Rejected. 
[August, 
480 
obtained still more perfectly by the use of Mr. Gibbs’s drying 
apparatus. But if fermentation is allowed to be set up the 
nature of the grass is seriously altered. Its colour and odour 
are changed, and its chemical composition and nutritive 
value suffer likewise. 
There is another point to be considered : in what may be 
called natural hay-making the cut grass in a loose open state 
is continually spread out to the sun and wind, so that every 
part of it is equally dried. Still more perfectly is this done 
in the Gibbs process, where the grass is tossed backwards 
and forwards in a kind of shower, in a current of hot, dry, 
air. But if we first make up the grass into a stack in the 
wet state, no matter what air-dudts we introduce and what 
heat we may apply, it is a physical impossibility for the 
whole mass to be perfectly and equally dried. One part of 
such a compadt mass might be at a temperature bordering 
upon redness, whilst a few inches off another portion may 
still be quite wet. 
As a practical and decisive test of the merits of the two 
systems we may refer to a case which was described in our 
issue for October last year (p. 572), where a stack of hay had 
been fired by an incendiary, and partly destroyed. The resi- 
due was tainted with the smell of smoke and soaked in water, 
so that cattle refused to touch it ; yet this apparently worth- 
less refuse, after passing through the Gibbs drying machine, 
came out not merely dry, but completely freed from the smell 
of fire, and was then readily eaten by cattle. We strongly 
doubt if any such result could be attained by Mr. Neison’s 
system, or by any process of stack-cooling. 
We admit that the machine is too costly for many farmers. 
But we do not see why — like steam-ploughs, &c. — it might 
not be let out on hire. It has been repeatedly proved that 
the working cost of the Gibbs machine is a mere trifle in 
comparison with the saving effected. The question as be- 
tween the two systems is not one of practical agriculture, 
but of physics and chemistry, and if “Agricola” had been 
better versed in these disciplines he would have come to a 
very different conclusion. 
