BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 169 
mens of equisetum gave off 8.30%, 9.89%, and 7.66% of water, re- 
spectively, on being dried at 110° C. 
The comparatively small proportion of nitrogen in the fertile stems 
is probably to be explained by a reference to the fact that by far the 
larger part of these stems consists of mere stalk, like the straw of a 
grain-plant, ‘The fertile stem serves merely as a mechanical support 
for the spore cases ; and there is no reason to suppose that any part 
of it should contain much nitrogenized matter, excepting the spores 
themselves, which are extremely small as compared with the whole 
mass of the stem. ‘The considerably larger proportion of nitrogen in 
the sterile stems may, perhaps, be connected with the fact that the 
function of the sterile stem is to accumulate nourishment to be stored 
in the root-stocks, whence both the fertile and the sterile stems of next 
year’s growth are to spring. 
Whatever may be the cause of the hurtfulness of the equisetum, it is 
evident that the plant was formerly a very serious injury to the low- 
lying meadows of Holland and the River Elbe, as may be seen from 
the following citations, or by consulting almost any of the old German 
treatises on husbandry. According to Nosemann,* who wrote a long 
prize essay on equisetum, and the best means of destroying it, Hqursetum 
arvense is very hurtful to horned cattle in Holland, and to cows in par- 
ticular. When a healthy cow in good flesh is turned into a pasture 
where this plant is growing, so that she may eat some of it together 
with the other herbage, no harm is done at first; at least, no appreci- 
able influence is noticed during the first day or two; but, in the course 
of four or five days, the bowels of the animal become very much loos- 
ened, and the yield of milk greatly diminished. This diarrhcea per- 
sists; and both the quantity and quality of the milk continue to 
deteriorate ; while the cow becomes thin, flabby, and weak, and her 
teeth loose. But, on removing the cow to a pasture free from equise- 
tum plants, the diarrhoea ceases after a short time; and she soon re- 
covers her health. 
It would seem that cattle reared in a country where Hquisetum ar- 
vense abounds, that have been accustomed to the plant from their youth, 
do not suffer nearly so much from it as strange cattle. But they are, 
nevertheless, apt to suffer somewhat from looseness of the bowels, i.e., 
* Beckmann’s “ Beytraige zur Gikonomie,” u. s. w., 1783, 9. pp. 297, 319-321, 
846-351, 379. 
