170 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
from a tendency to diarrhoea; they give less milk than cattle of similar 
kind kept on land free from equisetum plants; their milk yields less 
butter, and the butter is hard and bad. 
Linneus * has remarked upon this point, as follows : “ Bidlo reports 
that when cows ate brought from Friesland to Utrecht and Holland, 
where the equisetum is common, they become consumptive and die; 
though cows which have eaten the horse-tail from their youth up are 
not harmed by it.” 
Nosemann says further that neat-stock never prosper so well on 
estates where Hguisetum arvense grows as on those that are free from 
it; and that this remark is true both of animals that are pastured and 
of those which are fed in the stable upon hay that contains equisetum 
plants. At pasture, he repeats, the bowels of the cattle become so 
loose, and the diarrhcea which afflicts them is at last so persistent and 
deep-seated, that they fail either to grow, to gain flesh, or to give a 
proper quantity of good milk; and, in like manner, when the animals 
are fed upon hay that contains equisetum plants, they suffer similar in- 
conveniences, and their teeth become loose or drop out, so that they 
cannot chew their food properly. The milk given by cows thus fed, 
as well as the butter and cheese prepared from it, are all notably thinner, 
poorer, and more insipid than the normal products, or harder and of in- 
ferior appearance. ‘The fat of horned cattle that have been pastured 
on equisetum land is neither agreeable nor palatable, but is disgustingly 
white, and has a greasy taste. Nothing is more opposed to the fatten- 
ing of calves than the presence of equisetum plants in the straw with 
which they are bedded ; for the young animals pick out the equisetum 
plants, and eat them greedily, after which they are apt to become wild 
and to have fits, and to have so violent diarrhcea that they waste away 
and die. 
N. Beckmann,f in like manner, reports that in Hanover, as well as 
in Holland, horned cattle pastured in fields infested with equisetum are 
apt to have diarrhcea, and to become. gaunt, thin, and feeble. The 
cows give much less milk than they should, and what they do give is 
blue and of poor quality, without proper cream or rich butter. The 
* “ Natur- Kunst- und Gkonomie Historie von einigen Schwedischen Proyvin- 
zien,” Leipzig, 1756, p. 295. 
+ Beckmann’s “ Beytrige zur Gikonomie,” 1788, 9. pp., 819-323, the notes, 
and p. 376. 7 
