ts tend.
Visit one hundred farms, taken by chance in different parts of the
country, and you will find in each, methods directly opposite--a totally
peculiar manner of managing the stalls; you will see, in short, that the
conditions of food, of treatment, and of hygiene, remain not understood
in seven-eighths of rural farms."[29]

The straws of the cereal and leguminous plants are a striking
illustration of the erroneous opinions and practices which prevail
amongst agriculturists with respect to particular branches of their
calling. The German farmers regard straw as the most valuable
constituent of home-made fertilisers, and their leases in general
prohibit their selling off the straw produced on their farms. Yet
chemical analysis has clearly proved that the manurial value of straw is
perfectly insignificant, and that, as a constituent of stable manure, it
is chiefly useful as an absorbent of the liquid egesta of the animals
littered upon it. As food for stock, straw was at one time regarded by
our farmers as almost perfectly innutritious; some even went so far as
to declare that it possessed no nutriment whatever, and even those who
used it, did so more with the view of correcting the too watery nature
of turnips, than with the expectation of its being assimilated to the
animal body. Within the last few years, however, straw has been largely
employed by several of the most intelligent and successful feeders in
England, who report so favorably upon it as an economical feeding stuff,
that it has risen considerably in the estimation of a large section
of the agricultural public. Now, even without adopting the very high
opinion which Mechi and Horsfall entertain relative to the nutritive
power of straw, I am altogether disposed to disagree with those who
affirm that its application should be restricted to manurial purposes.
Unless under circumstances where there is an urgent demand for straw as
litter, that article should be used as food for stock, for which purpose
it will be found, if of good quality, and given in a proper state, a
most economical kind of dry fodder--equal, if not superior to hay, when
the prices of both articles are considered.

The composition of straw is very different from that of grain.
The former contains no starch, but it includes an exceedingly high
proportion of woody fibre; the latter is in great part composed of
starch, and contains but an insignificant amount of woody fibre. Dr.
Voelcker,