AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE FODDER. 



The subject is one of the greatest importance, not only as affording pas- 

 ture for horses and agricultural cattle, but also for improved breeds of 

 sheep which India is likely to produce, and export their wool. The 

 plains of India being subject to great heat with drought at one season, 

 and heavy rains at another, cannot be expected to present any pasture- 

 grounds resembling those of the best part of Europe ; but the temperature 

 of the cold weather months, especially in the northern provinces, being 

 such as to be most favourable for the cultivation of the same cereal 

 grasses as in Europe, it is not surprising that good grass is produced there, 

 and that many English gentlemen prepare very excellent hay. Their 

 rapid growth, great height, and subsequent dryness, render many of the 

 Indian grasses unfit for pasture at the end of the year. This the inhabi- 

 tants * * * remedy, by* yearly burning down the old and dry grass, so 

 as to allow the young blades which immediately sprout up to afford 

 fodder for their cattle. But Europeans in India infinitely prefer, or indeed 

 only give their horses, the creeping stems and leaves, scraped off the 

 ground by the grass-cutter, of that grass which is known by the name of 

 doob, or doorba (Cynodon Dactylon), and which flowers nearly all the 

 ye;ir round, and is, fortunately, by far the most common in every part of 

 India. * * * Cattle are also fed on chopped straw (bhoosa)* as well as 

 the stalk of the joar (Sorghum milgare) cut into small pieces, and then 

 called kurbee ; of this all kinds are remarkably fond. They are also 

 fond of the straw of many other of the cultivated Graminea as Paspalum 

 scrobiculatum, and Kora, Penicillaria spicata, Panicum italicum y fru- 

 mentaceum, miliare, and Eleusine cegyptiaca. Buffaloes are also fond of 

 kans t or Imperata (saccharum) Spontanea, and its varieties which are 

 stacked for the purpose. India is not, however, destitute of pasture 

 grasses, but they belong to genera and tribes different from those of 

 Europe as Panicum, Eragrostis Saccharum, Rottboellia, $-c.f" The 

 pastures of the various parts of India might probably be much, and at the 

 same time easily improved, by the introduction of some of the pasture 

 grasses of Brazil, which are of a gigantic stature, and perfectly tender and 

 delicate." (Koyle.) 



One of the most important subjects indeed to which the Agri-Horticul- 

 tural Society of Western India could give its attention, "Western India 

 being very unfortunate in respect of all kinds of fodder. The compiler 

 has known the whole cattle of a considerable city, having a large military 

 cantonment in the neighbourhood, pastured nearly all the year round, on 

 a bladeless area of splintered basalt, their nutriment being derived from 

 the use to which the ground was put by the city. Regularly each 

 morning when the inhabitants had turned out on the plain, the cattle 

 were turned out after them. The milk was absolutely undrinkable, and 



* Bhoosa in this presidency is either simple bran, or a mixture of various substances, 

 as bran of wheat, rice, chopped straw, and so forth. 



t Hoyle also mentions Andropogon martini (after General Martin), and Ischtemum 

 pil.osutn, the latter very common in tho black cotton soil. Dalzell however terms it 

 " the greatest pest to agriculturalists." 

 ' 129 



