CHAP. XI. 



GORSE AS FOOD FOR DAIRY COWS. 



179 



jecture. From October to March gorse will be found as useful an 

 adjunct to the dairy farmers' commissariat as could be desired, but as 

 the plant comes into flower its use for feeding should be discontinued. 

 The young shoots of the wild furze will pay for cutting, bruising, and 

 mixing with hay, straw, or roots, as food for dairy cows, whilst in the 

 case of the cultivated plant nearly the whole shrub may be utilized as 

 food. It was owing to its prickles that furze was so long ignored as a 

 forage plant, and although it might seem a comparatively easy task to 

 pound them so that they should not wound the mouths of cattle, many 

 practical difficulties presented themselves. These, however, have all 

 been overcome in the gorse masticator of Messrs. M'Kenzie & Sons, 

 Cork, the price of which ranges from about fourteen guineas upwards. 

 The late Mr. John Algernon Clarke, in describing it in the course of his 

 report upon the Kilburn Show, 1879, said : " By this most effective 

 machine, furze, gorse, or whin, as it is variously called, no matter how 

 stubborn it may be, is rendered soft, and the prickles are broken, so as 

 to be innocuous to cattle and horses. This machine is now able to 

 accomplish what has never been done before, for it will prepare as a 

 valuable food, not only the succulent shoots of furze sown and cut 

 every year, but the furze growing in a wild state ; and this is found to 

 be of high value as a fodder, while its cost is exceedingly small." The 

 subjoined table is given as showing the relative nutritive capacity of 

 gorse and other green foods, the figures being percentages : 



Pat-formers and 

 heat-producers. 



9-38 



8-62 



5-93 



4-43 



5-00 



8-60 

 10-18 



Fir-tops, or the young and tender shoots of fir-trees, have likewise 

 been employed with effect in cases of emergency, as a substitute for 

 other articles. A correspondent states, that, being in great want of 

 provender, and having scarcely any hay, he was compelled to feed his 

 beasts on fir-tops, and though he had more than two hundred head 

 of neat cattle, he did not lose more than four or Jive out of that 

 number ; while many graziers, farmers, and breeders lost one-half, 

 and several of them nearly the whole of their live stock. 



Straw of the cereals and of beans has been much written about, as a 

 feeding material for cattle. 



" The composition of the straw of the cereals," as we have elsewhere 

 remarked, " is very similar in all. Yielding a large percentage of woody 

 fibre, and but a small one of flesh-formers, straw possesses but a low 

 nutritive value. But this is not precisely the way to judge the ques- 

 tion : the important matter of bulk must not be overlooked. This is, 

 indeed, essential, for without it health would not be maintained ; 

 hence the value of the straws, when used in conjunction with food 



N 2 



