Gone. 
391 
died about 63 3'ears ago, and my mother was left in tlie occupation of a 
small fiirai called Cilmelyn, in the parish of Bangor, with myself, then 
11 years ol.l, and two younger brothers. Tiie rent of that place, thougli 
now 12/. \2s., was only 1/. 5s. 
There was no winter fodder whatever for the three cows that my mother 
had, and hay was at that time sold at 2*. 6(/. tlie cwt. My mother set 
me and my two younger brothers to gather and to chop gorse, promising 
to each of us a new pair of shoes on May-day if we did our work well. 
We gathered the gorse on the borders of a common ; and with two 
mallets and an axe, which I fancy I see before me now, we chopped 
and bruised what was required to keep the three cows up to May-day. 
We received the promised new shoes ; and the cows, when turned out 
to grass, were in a far better condition than when they used to be fed 
with hay. My mother always afterwards used to say that her cows 
never yielded such good profit as they did the winter they were fed with 
gorse by her boys. 
No. 2. 
William Owen^ of Nantporth, in the parish of Bangor. 
I HAVE used gorse, when I could get it, during the last twenty-eight or 
thirty years as food for milch cows. It is the best food that can be 
given to them. I invariably found, after all the gorse had been con- 
sumed and the cows put upon other food, that the quantity of milk and 
butter would greatly diminish. Gorse decidedly beats both turnips and 
swedes ; it produces richer milk and better flavoured butter. When- 
ever I can get gorse, I prefer it to any other winter food for my cows; 
when it is scarce, for the purpose of making it go further, I mix or give 
at the same time with it according to circumstances, chaff, turnips, 
swedes, cut-straw, and hay. I prepare the gorse, after being chopped 
or ground, by bruising it with a wooden mallet on a large flat stone. 
No. 3. 
At Cefn y Coed, in the county of Denbigh, in the late Mr. Roberts's* 
time and afterwards, gorse was used in conjunction with hay, and now 
and then a few potatoes as winter provender fur the cart-horses as well 
as for the saddle-horses. A gorse and malt mill, worked by water, had 
been an appendage to the property time immemorial. ]\Ir. Roberts's 
horses were always in excellent condition. The gorse was luxuriant, 
and was generally cut at two years old. 
The side-land on which it grew had no manure placed on it within 
the recollection of any one acquainted with the locality. Tliere are in 
the same district many similar instances. That part of the country 
which is hilly abounds with thickly wooded and deep glens ; sheep are 
not so generally kept as they are in those that are more level and less 
wooded. Mr. Roberts, however, had a small lot of South-downs, and, 
what was rather rare in those days, forty or fifty years ago, he used to 
grow a few acres of turnips and cabbages for the use of his stock. One 
* The father of the iVuthcr of this Essay. 
