FEEDING ANIMALS 141 



Horse chestnuts are used to a limited extent in Europe as a feed 

 for different classes of farm animals, and mostly roasted and ground. 

 They are high in starch and similar components of considerable feed 

 value, but contain certain bitter principles that make them unpalatable 

 to live stock. It is often difficult, therefore, to get stock to eat them, 

 but when once accustomed to the chestnuts, they will take them with- 

 out difficulty. Beef cattle and milch cows will eat as much as ten to 

 fifteen pounds of fresh chestnuts per head daily; horses five to six 

 pounds; hogs two to four pounds, etc. The simplest method of prepar- 

 ation is to roast them, which destroys largely the bitter principles; or 

 the shelled and ground chestnuts are soaked in water for two or three 

 days, or boiled, and then fed mixed with grain feeds, either wet or 

 after having been dried. F. W. W. 



