107 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON THE FEEDING VALUE OF STRAW. 
The wet ^yeather which prevailed during the greater por¬ 
tion of the late hay-making season has, we fear, in many 
places greatly deteriorated, that crop. In a recent ramble 
through the counties of Kildare, Carlow, and Wicklow, we 
saw but too plainly the ravages which the humid element 
had made on hundreds of portly stacks of hay. We were 
present at the sale by auction of the produce of a meadow 
of eight acres, which realised a little more than U. 
per cwt. This is by no means a solitary example, as we have 
been informed by several auctioneers that large quantities 
of inferior hay have been disposed of this season at exceed¬ 
ingly low prices. 
Very inferior hay is generally purchased by the hay dealers, 
and is mixed by them with the good article; and so skilfull}^, 
too, that the mixture of good and bad is often sold at the 
price commanded by the good, W’hen disposed of per se. 
We are clearly of opinion that inferior, fibrous, washed- 
out hay is dear almost at any price, and that the money paid 
for such an article would be much better expended if in¬ 
vested in oats and straw. 
Very discrepant, indeed, are the opinions relative to the 
nutritive and the fertilising value of straw. In Germany 
and many parts of Britain it is held in such high esti¬ 
mation as a manure, that its sale is strictly prohibited in 
most leases. In our own country many farmers believe it to 
be almost valueless as a feeding substance, whilst others 
entertain a high opinion of its alimentary value. 
The results of the experiments of Lawes and Horsfall 
prove that straw chaff is, as an adjunctive article of food, 
deserving of the farmer^s attention. We think, too, they 
demonstrate very clearly the wastefulness of the practice which 
prevails on so many farms of converting all the straw into 
litter, solely for the purpose of increasing the manure heap. 
That straw, in a chopped, or what is still better, thoroughly 
bruised state, is a most useful feeding substance, the results 
of its chemical examination, and of actual feeding experi¬ 
ments with it, place beyond doubt; and as its price is com¬ 
paratively low, it will be found a more economical feeding 
stuff than the washed-out coarse hay to which we have 
referred. 
