Colorado Fodders. 
8i 
not be a good standard for the comparison of all hays, as only 
a few of our hays are made from this class of plants, i. e., the pea 
vine, the clovers, etc., even in my work it stands alone, a leguminous 
hay, though pea vine and red clover hay were included in the work 
presented in Bulletin No. 39. As a standard of value for differ¬ 
ent hays made from grasses it may not be a good one, but as a 
standard of value in this study no better one could, in my opinion, 
be adopted. It is a favorably known fodder, yielding good results 
wherever used and its use is rapidly becoming more extensive than 
heretofore. The results of our investigation of this hay show 
the following points of interest: But little danger in its use, the 
green plant may produce bloating in cattle and the feeding of musty 
and dusty alfalfa hay is charged with producing the heaves in horses, 
further when fed alone it produces looseness of the bowels and in¬ 
creased urination. These are the evils chargeable to this plant; 
the rest to be said is favorable, it being an excellent fodder, even 
for horses when fed with proper precautions, while for fattening 
cattle and sheep it is unexcelled. For these good reasons, I have 
chosen it as the first subject for study. 
§191. The average composition of this hay is now very gen¬ 
erally known; it is characterized by the presence of a high percent¬ 
age of nitrogen, commonly expressed in terms of crude proteids 
which usually range from 12 to 15 per cent, of the hay. The group 
indicated by the term crude fibre is rather abundant, being from 
30 to 35 per cent, in good hays, and that understood by the term 
nitrogen-free extract, is about the same, 30 to 35 per cent. In a 
general wa}^ then, we may represent alfalfa hay as being composed 
of one-third crude fibre, one-third nitrogen-free extract, one-sixth 
proteids while the other sixth is represented by ash and ether ex¬ 
tract. The other leguminous hay, common in some parts of Col¬ 
orado, is pea vine hay. This is, when cut in full bloom, somewhat 
richer in proteids, with about the same, perhaps a little smaller, 
percentage of crude fibre and nitrogen-free extract. Red clover 
hay is occasionally met with and is, so far as the observations of 
this department go, something richer in nitrogen-free extract, but 
otherwise about the same as alfalfa. The leguminous hays differ 
from those made from grasses in that they contain less nitrogen-free 
extract, 30 to 36 per cent., in samples of alfalfa, third cutting, oc¬ 
casionally as much as 41 per cent., against 42 to 50 per cent, in the 
hays made from grasses. They are richer in crude fibre, ranging 
from 32 or 33 to occasionally 40 per cent, for alfalfa against 20 to 
30 and sometimes more in the hays of the grasses. They further 
contain from two to three times as much crude proteid—from ii 
to 17 or 18 per cent, against 5 to 9 per cent., rarely m'ore, in that 
made from the grasses. Such are the differences between the two 
