GRASS AND HAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1924, Page 15

GRASS AND HAY.

Experience has placed beyond dispute one fact in dairying. It is this —that the greatest yield of milk, the best butter and the best cheese are obtained when the cattle are out at grass. But grass makes hay, and yet hay will not produce those same results. For many years it. was assumed that no other change took place in converting grass into hay than drying or the passing away of water. Yet experience showed that by giving hay to cattle and water a burnt cou oould not obtain th®

' game results were obtained when grass was given, and this should have taught men that there were other changes. We now know that in making hay two such changes take place other than the mere loss of moisture. The first is only a change of constituents, the other results in an actual loss of constituents. Of the material of the succulent grass, the complicated digestive apparatus of the cow can utilise three-fourths. 'Grass, like all vegetable matter, is built up of cells, each surrounded with a coating of material which, from its being so found, has been termed cellulose. W/ithin these cellulose walls are contained the sugar, starch and albumen of the plant. In a tree, as each year new cells are formed, the old ones lose their contents, dry up, and become wood. The succulent cellulose of the living cells is entirely different from this woody cellulose. The former a cow can digest and utilise, the latter is no food; indeed, when taken in excess woody cellulose is detrimental to cattle. This change of digestible succulent cellulose into indigestible woody cellulose (or fibre, as it is often called) is one which takes place in the conversion of grass into hay. Moreover, it takes place in every forage and succulent crop as it approaches ripeness, and especially after it flowers; hence the necessity of cutting such crops before they are overripe. The second change which takes place in the conversion of grass into hay is due to fermentation and exidation. —.N.Z. Farmer.