THE HORSE. 76 



used as food for horses. Cabbage, and some other 

 g^een articles, are eaten, but they deserve no par- 

 ticular notice. Several, which form the ordinary 

 green food of horses in other countries, are not 

 grown here. The leaves and clippings of the vine 

 are much used in many parts of France. 



Furze is generally used on the frontiers of France 

 and Spain ; and the British cavalry, while in the 

 Pyrenees, under the duke of Wellington, had no 

 other forage. 



DRY HERBAGE. 



In Great Britain the dry herbage consists of hay 

 and straw. In France the vine-leaves are collected 

 and stored for winter fodder. In the West Indies 

 the tops of the sugar-cane are deemed highly nutri- 

 tious, after they are dried and sweated a little in 

 heaps. In a season of abundance, ricks of the cane- 

 tops the butt-ends in, are made in a corner of each 

 field, to supply the want of pasturage and other 

 food. These are chopped small and mixed with 

 common salt, or sprinkled with a solution of molasses. 

 Maize is sometimes made into hay. " When Guinea 

 or Indian corn is planted in May, and cut in July, 

 in order to bear seed that year, that cutting properly, 

 tended, makes an excellent hay, which cattle prefer 

 to meadow hay. In like manner, after the corn has 

 done bearing seed, the after crop furnishes abun- 

 dance of that kind of fodder which keeps well in 

 ricks for two or three years."* '* In some places 

 dried ferns, reeds, flags, small branches or twigs are 

 dried and used as substitutes for hay."t Doubtless 

 there are many other plants made into fodder, in 

 different parts of the world. Where Canary com 

 is raised the chaff and straw are given to horses, 



* Bracy Clark's Pharmacopceia Equina, 

 t Blaine's Outlines of Vet Med. 



