BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 129 
plants. I am ignorant as to what influence, if any, these ash ingre- 
dients may have upon the fodder value of the weeds. It is not prob- 
able, however, that they are specially hurtful. The proportion of ash 
in pasture grass, it will be noticed, is not particularly small. It has 
indeed sometimes been urged that the saline constituents of weeds are 
beneficial toanimals. Sprengel * held, for example, that one advantage, 
in using the dandelion as fodder, lay in the fact that the leaves are 
rich in common salt; 7.¢., in sodium compounds. 
The general conclusion to be drawn from the evidence now attain- 
able is, that the weeds here in question really have a considerable value 
for feeding animals; and that, although they are unfit for cultivation 
because inferior to the plants now actually grown with which they 
would have to come into competition, they should not on that account 
be completely neglected or despised. It is undoubtedly true that many 
an American farmer will occasionally find himself so situated that it 
would well be worth the while for him to collect such weeds and feed 
them out systematically in conjunction with other kinds of food; and 
it is to be urged emphatically that when, as constantly happens, such 
weeds are collected merely for the purpose of destroying them, they 
should be used as fodder, in some definite and methodical way, rather 
than be composted, or burned, or thrown aside, as is now too much 
the custom almost everywhere. It is to be remembered, moreover, 
that any new incentive to the collecting of weeds, such as the estab- 
lishment of a habit of putting them to use in that stage of develop- 
ment at which their fodder value is greatest, would work very surely 
towards clearing the land of the unwelcome intruders. 
I am indebted to my assistant, Mr. D. S. Lewis, for aid in this in- 
vestigation. 
* Erdmann’s “ Journal tech. und ekon. Chemie,” 1829, 5. 284. 
VOL. II. 9 
