On Green or Fodder Crops. 
147 
Some farmers who grow it in rows, 18 inches apart, very much 
prefer to cut only alternate rows at any one time, by which 
arrangement all the furze, before being cut, has the advantage of 
two years' growth, and it appears that the shoots of two years' 
growth are not too hard for stock-feeding after having been 
crushed. Most growers prefer to take cuttings, in the winter 
or early spring, when it is difficult to find any other green food. 
The affluence of the furze plantation at this period is what, 
indeed, causes it to be of greatest value. 
Horses are fond of crushed furze, and they thrive well on it, 
this kind of food being considered to impart to their coats a 
glossy and sleek appearance. Indeed, the discovery that the 
plant was available as a food substance for stock was first made 
during the Peninsular war. The cavalry horses of the British 
army having no forage on the mountain steppes of Spain, a 
bright idea struck somebody that perhaps they could be made to 
eat the furze shoots with which the country abounded ; and the 
result of a trial with the pounded shoots saved a large number 
of horses from starvation. For dairy cows in the winter and 
early spring, crushed furze is of special value, as it not only 
causes them to give large yields of milk, but so improves the 
quality of the lacteal secretion as to occasion a larger proportion 
of cream and butter than from the consumption of any other 
green foods. 
As to the nutritive qualities of gorse, Mr. J. Waller says : 
"It contains much more solid matter than either turnips, mangels, or 
carrots, which are the crops generally used as forage during the winter 
months, and, like most plants belonging to the order Leguminosae, also contains 
a much larger amount of nitrogen or flesh-forming constituents." 
The results of chemical analysis, whenever made, have always 
been to confirm the high opinions formed by practical men of 
this produce being extremely nutritive in character, and it 
does indeed seem strange that the plant is not more generally 
cultivated, at least on stony and shallow soils, worth little for other 
cropping. The plant also is capable of converting to high 
utility the sloping banks and odd waste places of farms in, 
general. 
Conclusion. 
The fact should be borne in remembrance that among some 
crops generally grown there are uncommon varieties which are 
not as yet so highly appreciated as they deserve to be. Our 
leading seedsmen all have specialties in mangolds, which are 
richer fleshed, or better modelled, or less fangy than ordinary 
sorts, yet the bulk of the farming community ignore the fact, 
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