A STUDY OF RELATIVE VALUES OF COLORADO FODDERS 
A Continuation of Studies in Bulletins 39 and 93. 
By W. P. Headden. 
§ I. The scientific feeder and student of aninml nutrition has, 
for the past forty-five or fifty years, been accustomed to divide fodders 
into certain big groups to which different names have .been applied 
and now the veriest tyro can talk very glibly of proteids and carbo- 
hydrates, but, after all, the practical man, and even our scientific friends, 
do not adhere tenaciously to the data indicated by the results of the 
calculations based on the analytical data, but adopt the plainer and 
easier way of judging the value of a fodder by the effect it produces. 
A grass may have, according to the results obtained by the analyst, an 
admirable composition, but if animals will not eat it, its good com¬ 
position goes for nothing, or if they eat it and constantly lose in 
weight, the excellent analytic results are of no value. Facts similar 
to these are met with, sometimes in this extreme form, sometimes in 
a milder form. 
§ 2. Hays made from different plants vary in quality, i. e., 
in their fitness to be used as fodders and in their fattening qualities. 
These differences are very great even when no individual idiosyno- 
crasies of the animals fed can be appealed to to explain away the 
facts. In a bulletin published by the Colorado Experiment Station 
we have made an attempt to explain the reasons for these differences. 
It appears from this work that the extract obtained by boiling the 
fodder repeatedly with 80 per cent alcohol, is the most important 
part of the fodder; it contains a large, if not the largest, part of the 
nitrogenous substances and very large quantities of other matters. 
§ 3. It is pointed out that water alone will extract as much 
as 40 per cent of alfalfa hay. This hay is easily damaged by rain. 
The explanation offered is the ready solubility of so large a portion 
of the hay. 
§ 4. The alcoholic extract is itself highly digestible. This is true, 
too, of the nitrogenous matters contained in it. It is further demon¬ 
strated that this alcoholic extract furnishes more energy to the animal 
than any other portion of the fodder. This is true in each of the six 
fodders whose composition is presented. 
§ 5. It is shown that the fodders yield extracts to muriatic 
acid, also to a solution of caustic soda, which vary in value in the 
different fodders. In some fodders, the former extract, but in others 
the latter, has the greater value. In alfalfa, the portion removed by 
the caustic soda, but in the Colorado native hay that removed by the 
muriatic acid is the more valuable portion. To the most of us, 
however, the surprising feature is the high value possessed by what 
is designated as residue or cellulose, the portion left after treating the 
hay with alcohol, muriatic acid, caustic soda and chlorin. It would 
seem that there would be but little or nothing remaining of a hay 
after being treated with these chemicals in the succession given, still 
