70 
ANALYSES OF THE GRASSES. 
materially in composition. Grasses are strictly silica plants ; but the clovers, in place of 
silica, contain lime and magnesia. The other nutritive bodies, however, are not very 
dissimilar, consisting as they do in each class of albumen in conjunction with woody fibre, 
and phosphates of lime, magnesia and iron. 
As in the potato, so in the grasses, it is essential that we should ascertain the proximate 
elements of which they are composed. I have been able as yet to make but a few analyses 
of these products, scarcely sufficient, it is supposed, to aid in estimating their practical use 
in feeding and fattening stock to the greatest advantage. Regarding the inorganic and 
organic parts as of equal importance, the work of analysis is but half completed when it 
stops with the ash. As my attention has been mostly directed to the ash analysis, I shall 
first give my results in this research ; designing, if necessary, to select from the works of 
others such analyses of the organic parts as shall be deemed sufficient to answer the in¬ 
quiries of agriculturists, or so much as I deem necessary to an entire view of the subject, 
or to a somewhat complete exhibition of the composition of these plants. 
I. TIMOTHY GRASS (Phleum V ratemis)*. 
1. First specimen : collected May 20, 1848. 
Stalk 24 inches long; head not visible. 
PROPORTIONS. 
Stalk ...... 65*30 
Leaf ...... 34*70 
100*00 
Water in the stalk ------ 81*00 
Dry matter - - - - - - * 17*80 
Ash ----- 1*20 
Ash calculated dry - - - - - - 6*74 
Water in the leaf - - - - - ■ 75*00 
Dry matter - - - - - - 23*00 
Ash ........ 2*00 
Ash calculated dry - - - * * - 8*69 
Water in the whole plant - - - - 78*00 
Dry matter - - - - - - - 20*46 
Ash - * « - - - - - 1*60 
Ash calculated dry - - - * - - 7*82 
By Mi*. Ball, Hoosic Falls, Rensselaer county. 
