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SIR J. B. LAWES AND DR. J. H. GILBERT ON THE COMPOSITION 
of phosphoric acid is several times as great, and it is chiefly as phosphate of potash ; 
whilst in hay the loss in phosphoric acid is much the same as in wheat or barley grain, 
but that of both lime and potash is very much greater than in any of the other 
products. 
It is freely granted that the results which have been brought forward are calculated 
to suggest rather than to answer questions of interest from the point of view of the 
physiologist. He will ask why the selection of parts submitted to analysis was not 
more detailed. The answer must be that the agricultural aspects of the subject were 
necessarily those which guided the course of the investigation ; and that, although it 
would have been carried out in more detail had it been practicable to do so, the 
pressure of other equally essential work has enforced the limitation which has been 
adopted. The execution of 40 complete ash-analyses is indeed a matter of no small 
labour; and however much we may regret that we have not been able to give a wider 
scope to the inquiry, we must be satisfied that the results do at least form a substantial 
contribution to the chemical statistics of the feeding of the animals of the farm for 
human food. 
