[ 520 '] 



that cows yield more milk if they get to eat simul flower 

 (Bombax heptophylla), or seed and plants of cotton. It is also 

 well known in this country that skins and rinds of sweet fruits 

 g.g., mangoes, jack,&c., the water strained out after boiling 

 rice, rice-dust (khud), husk and bran (bhusa) also mahua flower 

 (Bassia latifolia), gur and common salt, are stimulating food 

 for cattle. So special arrangements for feeding cattle are 

 not unknown in this country, 



. ,060. Introduction of new fodder crops is however de- 

 sirable. The value of sun-flower as a fodder has been 

 already referred to. Field-beans form a principal staple of 

 English agriculture, as they yield the most nourishing food 

 for animals. The dwarf shrub of field-beans produces an 

 abundance of pods. Bean-meal is the favourite food for 

 horses, cattle and sheep. It is more strengthening than wheat 

 and barley and yet it does not cause diarrhoea. In fact, in 

 diarrhcea bean-meal is freely used as a binding food. In 

 p. 589 we have placed beans first in the list in considering 

 the relative value of food- stuffs. If field-beans are not grown 

 we can at least grow popat-bean and cow-peas more largely. 

 In some parts of Bengal, field beans, though an exotic, used 

 to be grown as a crop in former years, and there is no reason 

 Avhy its cultivation should not be revived. In the district 

 bf Murshidabad field-bean plants are met with in the wild state 

 in nearly every old garden. Gardeners of Murshidabad call 

 the plants bakla* and they remember the days when it used 

 to be grown as a crop for the Commissariat Department, 

 when soldiers were stationed in that district. 



1. 06 1. A sweet root, called the mangold or mangel-wurzel, 

 which is much larger in size than beet but allied to it, is 

 used extensively as a fodder crop, in England. Larger varieties 

 of turnip, carrot, cabbages are also used as fodder. Salt is 

 used as a stimulating manure for these crops. In the Sunder- 

 bans and other parts of the country where the soil contains 

 an excess of salt, waste land can be profitably utilised in 



