Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1868-07-31

The succulent grasses that clothe our
fields with verdure are very insignificant
vegetable growths in contrast with the for
est trees whose huge trunks rise up from
the hillside and the plain. and darllen, with
their dense foliage, unnumbcred acres of
of our fertile lands. In the tiny stalk and
leaves of the timothy, clover, red-top, &C.,
there are rich juices circulating, which
have been drawn from mother earth. These
juices are the very pabulum of life, and
from them, indirectly, we draw our susie
nance. If we subject to chemical analysis
these grasses, we shall find them to contain
all the essential elements of animal growth.
But it is not our intention to follow this
line of thought, however pleasing or attrac-
tive it may be. We wish to make few
brief observations upon the chemistry of
curing hay.
Curing hay is, chemically speaking,
distillatory or evaporative process. 1t is
doing with succulent vegetable substances,
what the salt-maker does with his saline
waters, or the sugar-maker with his saccha-
rine juices. The object is to drive off sur
plus waters, which hold the valuable prin-
ciples in solutions to get rid of worthless
and interfering substances, and retain all
the desirable ones. The sugar-maker may
apply too intense heat or direct flame to his
evaporatng pans, and burn or spoil his
products; so the farmer may heat his hay
too much in the blazing rays of the sun,
and greatly injure the rich nutrient princi
pies upon which its value depends. Ger
tain it is, we cannot control all the condi
tions upon which the production of perfect
ly cured hay depends; but we can control
them much more decidedly than we do.
\ ton of well-cured or properly dried hay
is worth more in the NOW than two tuns of
that which is cut at an improper time and
cured in an improper manner.
Grass is not generally cut carly enough
in the season. The sugar, the gluten, and
starch, are in the best condition for preserv-
ing, before the ripening of the seed COM
mences. The great end and aim of plant
life is to reproduce itself,-to perfect its
seed. The periods of inhorescence and
seed-bearing are attended with large eN-
penditure of costly material. The develop
ment of the flower to blade of timothy, is
a very different affair to that of one of the
green leaves. The former contributes moth
ing to the general maintenance of the plant;
the latter is mouth, stomach, and lung
just previous to towering, the vegetative
power is most active, and large quantities
of starch are being stored up ready for use
when the pressing occasion arrives to form
the seed. A tremendous struggle takes
place in the plant, when the nutritive prn-
eiple is dissolved by the aid of diastase, and
and transferred to the seed. As soon as 1t
is over, signs of exhaustion appear, and the
plant dies. The time TO cut grass is before
this eliminating point is reached, when the
nutritive principle pervades every part OF
the stalk and leaf.
Grass is generally dried too much. The
ligneous part becomes hard and tough, and
animals do not like it any better than we
like over baked bread. The nutritive por-
tions are not so readily eliminated, and the
waste is much greater in passing through
the assimilating organs. 1t is not necessa-
ry to dry hay so thoroughly, in order TO
preserve it from putreiactive change in the
NOW. If the weather is clear and warm, ii
may safely be stored the same day 1t is cut,
provided it is not cut in the early morning,
while loaded with dew. If grass could be