24 
IMPERIAL COLLEGE OE 
The millet hay cured under favourable conditions of 
weather (1882) is, according’ to these results an easily 
digestible fodder with a medium content of protein and 
having about the same nutritive value as “ medium good ” 
meadow hay (see p. 12). The specimen examined in 1882, 
though already in the state of milk-ripeness, contained still 
a fair amount of albuminoids, and the formation of fibre 
had not yet advanced very far, whence it seems that late 
cutting is not so objectionable in the case of this millet, as 
it has been observed to be with other gramineæ. 
A comparison of the two kinds of hay affords a striking- 
illustration of damage caused by wetting while curing. In 
consequence of the extraction of crude protein and nitrogen- 
free extract by rain the proportion of crude fibre was about 
10 percent higher in the sample injured by rain than in the 
other hay, and the digestibility had been materially 
diminished; the contents of digestible nutrients, percent of 
dry matter are as follows :— 
Without rain. With rain. 
Crude protein . 6.93 6.19 
Carbohydrates and fat . 53.08 42.64 
Assuming that in 188d we might have obtained the same 
kind of hay, if there had been no rain while curing,—which 
will be, of course, only approximately true,—we find that 
of 100 parts of each group of nutrients the following losses 
had been caused by the rain : 
Raw Digestible nutrients Loss from 1UU p. 
nutrients. from 1UU p. of raw ones, of digestible nutrients. 
Crude protein . 19.0 19.1 27.9 
Nitrogenfree extract 41.4 42.1 63.9 
These figures show, how enormous an amount of 
nutrients is liable to be lost, unless the utmost care and 
speed are bestowed upon the curing of the hay. Moreover, 
the close coincidence of the two first columns indicates that 
the materials extracted by rain or destroyed by a subsequent 
fermentation are the most valuable as they are absolutely 
digestible. 
