410 Transactions.— Botany. 
they grow, and make them improve in condition quickly, they may then be 
regarded as a useful and good addition to our fodder plants, but as I never 
think much of any plaut until it has had five or six years testing, it is too 
soon yet to say much in favour of this plant. 
The Prosopis pubescens, or screw bean tree. As soon as I heard this 
plant was considered to be a useful one for fodder, I procured specimens 
and seed. The seeds vegetated, and the plants are growing slowly, so that 
in a few years we shall be able to learn whether it will grow freely in this 
country. I read of a strange test which was applied to try the use of this 
tree. A horse was given all he liked to eat of the pods with the seed in 
them, and he liked them so well that he ate about four pounds of the dry 
husks or screw pods. The result was what might have been expected. The 
horse was found dead the following morning. No doubt the same event 
would have occurred had the horse been fed with any other such dry 
material, and, although the horse’s death was attributed by the writer to 
the poisonous effect of the screw bean, I think it was rather to be ascribed 
to the large amount of dry husk swallowed, as a horse has often killed him- 
self by eating too treely wheat chaff, bran, or even whole wheat itself; so the 
death of this animal does not prove that the screw bean is poisonous, but 
that too large an amount of dry food becomes injurious to any animal 
partaking too freely of it. But there are better trees of this Prosopis genus 
. than the screw bean, and some of them are found most excellent fodder for 
horses, and other live stock where they grow, and I intend to get them as 
soon as possible and try them here. 
There are also among the plants that are worthy of culture as annuals 
by farmers for fodder to cut green, or to dry and make into hay, several 
of the millets that will do well here, and yield a large crop of herbage and 
seed, and that are readily eaten by horses, cattle, and sheep. 
A millet from Queensland I tried. It began to grow in the aina 
coming up very guickly; by the autumn it had ripened its seed; the herbage 
is tender, succulent, and relished by all stock; it grows about three feet 
high, shooting out thickly. 
A millet from France much resembles tho preceding, but bears 2 
larger and more abundant seed; it sends out branches from the joints, 
which also seed ; from the large quantity of seed and its succulent green 
stems and leaves, it proves itself a useful fodder-plant. 
Milium effusum is another plant that gives a large quantity of seed, and 
as it will grow under trees or bush, it might be sown there in the place of 
other kinds not suitable; it also does well if grown with tares or vetches, 
and when cut together can be used as a fodder with great advantage. 
Hungarian millet also does well here, and ripens its enormous heads of 
