BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION, 41 
found, indeed, that the whole of the chlorine and of the sulphuric acid, 
and nearly all the phosphoric acid, could be washed out from the leaves 
and stalks, and that the larger share of the lime, magnesia, soda, and 
potash, also was soluble, though a portion of each of these substances 
escaped solution. Iron compounds were found both in the solution and in 
the leached plants. Silica was insoluble for the most part, though a lit- 
tle of it passed into the solution. A good statement of the difficulty 
of extracting all the soluble ash ingredients from a plant by means of 
water has been given by Hellriegel,* in connection with the work just 
now referred to. 
Several chemists have investigated the composition of hay that has 
been exposed to rain in the making, as compared with that of hay that 
has been cured in fine weather. The results of these experiments do not 
agree with one another very closely, as was naturally to be expected 
from the dissimilarity of the conditions under which the experiments 
were made, It is hardly conceivable, for that matter, that the hay in any 
two experiments of this sort could have been leached by rain to precisely 
the same degree, or have undergone either the same amount of drying 
before it was first wet, or the same amount of decay and fermentation 
before the final wetting. Hence, although the experiments have a certain 
bearing upon the present inquiry, they are of less importance for it than 
many of those already given that have been carried out in a more sys- 
tematic way. In a case reported by Stceckhardt,+ a quantity of grass 
that had been cut on a given day was made into hay of excellent quality 
in the course of three days. Part of it was safely housed on the third 
day, while the rest was caught out in a severe shower, and, after it had 
been again spread, was exposed to alternate wettings and dryings, until 
the thirteenth day after mowing, whenit was housed in its turn. Analyses 
of the two sorts of hay gave the following results : — 
There was contained in the : — Well-made Damaged 
hay. hay. 
Albuminoids that were still soluble in water. . 7.8 6.5 
Carbohydrates ‘5 yt de oh 54,0 49.8 
Cellulose and other ieatuhtein organic matter . 32.1 36.5 
ke ee ves ted mia 
100.0 100.0 
Ritthausen,t on the other hand, operating upon red clover that had 
been mown on June 6-8, just as it was beginning to blossom, and 
which was leached by heavy rains that fell upon it almost every day dur- 
ing two weeks, as it lay upon the field, found: — 
* “ Die landwirthschaftlichen Versuchs Stationen,” 1862, 4. 81. 
t In his “ Chemische Ackersmann,” 1855, 1. 60. 
t “Journal fiir praktische Chemie,” 1855, 65. 18. 
