FOOD AND FODDER 



LIVE STOCK 



Cattle Pood 

 and Fodder 



IIay-m*ldnjj. 



Source of 

 Poverty. 



Increase of 

 Cattle. 



breeds. Hay-making is not practised by the Indian cultivators, 

 and the surplus of naturally produc.-d L'rass is thus left to waste. More- 

 the cost and difficulty of transport preclude the equalisation of 

 supplies, hence in seasons of drought the greatest hardships have to be 

 endured, and the first indication of famine is the increasing death-rate 

 of the cattle. For example, during the famine years of 1899-1900 some- 

 thing like 70 to 80 per cent, of the cattle perished in certain districts of 

 Bombay, notwithstanding the large imports of fodder made by Govern- 

 ment, for the railways were unable to cope with the burden thrown on their 



in vs in conveying food and fodder to the famine-stricken districts. 

 It has sometimes been upheld that cattle represent the raiyats* capital. 

 They certainly provide the labour for ploughing and carting, as well as 

 v.-rv largely supply the manure and fuel used by their owners. In return 

 the animals get what they can pick up (after the crops are off the fields) 

 and what they can discover on the waysides and waste lands. Neverthe- 

 less they often become the cultivator's greatest source of poverty and 

 danger. They increase beyond the needs of the neighbourhood, and thus 

 rapidly change the character of the vegetation : noxious weeds survive 

 anil nutritious plants are gradually exterminated. Thus are the village 

 cattle themselves not only depraved and starved, but the natural fertility 

 id humidity of the soil lowered to such an extent that any untoward 

 itic disturbance only too frequently means famine. Of few localities 

 it be said that special food or fodder is grown for the cattle, but where special Fodder, 

 is done, as, for example, the cultivation of the cluster-bean, Cf/ftmopsis 

 n-fiHoi<lfi8 (p. 449), and of fodder crops of Sort/hum rtf If/arc (of 

 lich the races known as sundhia, dudhia, nilva, etc., may be mentioned, 

 p. 1039) in Gujarat and Jhang, etc., etc., the superiority of the cattle in 

 these regions has been frequently attributed to that circumstance. It is of 

 course customary to give rich foods (including several kinds of oil-cake) to 

 milch-cows and to bullocks in daily work. Mollison reviews the opinions 

 that prevail in India regarding linseed, til, niger, safflower, ground-nut, 

 >anut, and cotton-seed cake. [C/. Leather, Agri. Ledg,, 1897, No, 8.] 

 is somewhat remarkable, but true, that a very large percentage of the 

 ught bullocks of India are fed exclusively on dry food. It is of Dry Food. 



se very generally believed that green food is not suited to working 

 tie. This is, however, a very different question from that of the 

 iditions of life and the food-stuffs essential to systematic breeding, 

 lere the improvement of stock is a distinct feature. The contrast 

 tween the bullocks belonging to the European planters in Tirhut and those 

 the Bihar peasants, or between the bullocks owned by the Burmans 

 those possessed by the Hindustani residents in Burma, abundantly 

 amplify the difference between carefully reared and properly tended 

 tie and those brought up under a system of indifference and neglect. 

 In the Dictionary will be found a complete enumeration of the trees, 

 ibs, herbs and grasses known to be of value as cattle food and fodder. 

 Excellent pasturage exists in most provinces, especially on the lower hills 

 and great Himalayan range. Open stretches of grass-land (maidans) often Upland Grass, 

 extend from the upper limits of the forests towards the snow-line. On 

 these uplands vast herds of sheep and goats are to be found, the latter 

 affording the much prized pashm wool (hair). But on the lower Himalaya 

 the cattle are largely fed on the leaves of four species of oak and a few 

 other trees. The grass that exists abundantly in these tracts is as a rule FoddersT 



741 



D.E.P., 

 v., 463-78. 

 Oil-cake. 



