s amount of flesh-forming principles, and greatly exceeds them in its
proportion of fat-forming elements. We further learn that in general the
different kinds of straw will be found to stand in the following order,
the most nutritious occupying the highest, and the least nutritious the
lowest place:--

1. Pea-haulm.
2. Oat-straw.
3. Bean-straw with the pods.
4. Barley-straw.
5. Wheat-straw.
6. Bean-stalks without the pods.

It is a matter to be regretted that we possess so little accurate
knowledge of the chemical composition of the plants cultivated in
Ireland. No doubt the analyses of English grown wheat, beans, mangels,
and other plants, serve to give us a general idea of the nature of those
vegetables when produced in this country. But this kind of information,
though very important, must necessarily be defective, as differences
in climate modify--often to a considerable extent--the composition of
almost every vegetable. Thus, the results of Anderson's analyses prove
Scotch oats to be superior, as a feeding stuff, to Scotch barley,
whilst, according to Voelcker and the experience of most English
feeders, the barley of parts of England is superior to its oats. It
follows, then, that whilst the results of the analyses of straw, made by
Voelcker and Anderson are of great interest to the Irish farmer, they
would be still more important to him had the straw to which they relate
been the produce of Irish soil. In order, therefore, to enable the Irish
farmer to form a correct estimate of the value of his straw, we should
put him in possession of a more perfect knowledge of its composition
than that which is derivable from the investigations to which I have
referred. The straws of the cereals--which alone are used here to any
extent--should be analysed as carefully and as frequently as those of
Great Britain have been; and if such were done, I have no doubt but that
the results would indicate a decided difference in composition between
the produce of the two countries. Some time ago I entered upon what, at
the time, I had intended should be a complete investigation into the
composition of Irish straws; but which want of time prevented me from
making more than a partial one. The results are given in the following
tables:--

ANALYSES OF IRISH OAT-STRAW.

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| No. 1. |Obtained in the Dublin Market.