FODDER for cattle in India is of various plants, —the root of the hariali grass, Cynodon dactylon ; the stalk of the joar, Sorghum vulgare, cut into small pieces ; the straw of several grasses, Paspa lum scrobiculatum, Penicillaria spicata, Panicurn Italicum, P. frumentaeeum, P. miliare, and Eleusine Egyptiaca. Buffaloes are also fond .of kans (Saccharum [imperata] spontaneurn) and its varieties. The pasture grasses in Hurriana are celebrated for the herds of cattle which graze on them, species of Panicum, Pennisetum, Cenchrus, Chmtaria, Vilfa, Dactylolenium, Chloris, Eleusine, Achrachne, Poa, Eragrostis, Andropogon, species of Saccharum and Rottbollia. A clover or lucerne, shotal, is grown ; also sinji, but this principally by Europeans for their horses and other cattle. Cattle are usually fed (besides grass) on bhusa, or, as it is called in Panjabi, turi, the chopped straws of wheat and barley ; besides which they get karbi, the dried stalks of joar (Sorghum vulgare); this latter when green and fresh is called charri. Chopped leaves of the ber (both Zisyphus vulgaris and Z. nummularia), called mulla, are much used, and are said to be fattening. In Shahpur and one or two other districts, turnips are grown very extensively for feeding cattle during the cold weather, and they often attain a larger size than in Europe. The markan grass, the wild sawank, pbog, the seed of Calligo num polygonum, is used, and also as human food in the Panjab in times of famine. Dhaman or anjan (Pennisetum cenchroides) is considered the best grass for cattle, rapidly improving their condition and increasing their produce in milk. Jhang is a scented grass, probably Andropogon schrenanthus ; and the root of A. muricatum forms the kbas khas used in matting tatties and screens for cool ing the atmosphere. The leaves and fruit of many trees are used ; and Dr. J. L. Stewart names 64 trees which furnish fodder in the Panjab.
As fodder for camels, there are Khazya stricta, D. C.; Salsola species—Calotropis Hamiltonii, TV., Euphorbia nereifolia, L.; Sueda species—Trian thema micrantha, Xygophyllum simplex, etc. The camel eats the Nerium odorum, but it invariably proves fatal.
The farmers of India have over long trusted to the natural grasses, and this has led to the im pression that India is very deficient in green crops suitable for the food of cattle, and that, from June to October especially, there is nothing to be got but roots ; and the great difficulty has been to find some crop that will yield green fodder during the months of June, July, and August.
In the vicinity of Madras, at the experimental farm at Sydapet, Mr. Robertson in 1870 reported that with care an abundance of green fodder may be maintained all the year round ; that an acre of land thus laid out will amply keep two or three horses, and double that number of cattle ; that, with abundance of water, hariali grass is the most profitable crop ; with a tolerable supply, Sorghum saccharatum pays best ; with water only from October to May, yellow cholum and cumboo will maintain an abundant and continuous supply of green and nutritious food. He says the cumboo
crop afforded an abundant supply of green fodder at a time when it is usually very scarce. Under irrigation it is possible to grow yellow cholum so as to afford a supply of green fodder throughout the hot season ; but there are large tracts of country to which irrigation cannot be applied, in which cumboo will yield excellent green fodder during the season when the stock-feeder finds it the most difficult to maintain the condition of his animals. Cumboo sown in the middle of June received no water other than the ordinary rainfall. Within six weeks it reached an average height of not less than eight feet, and was then cut for green fodder. The cattle eat it greedily, and fattened much more rapidly than usual on other green crops. The weight of the fodder reached the high figure of 1800 pounds per acre. It would be the easiest thing in the world so to arrange the planting of the cumboo as to obtain a constant supply of fodder at all times. On one occasion, when several advantageous circumstances met, the hariali grass at this place grew to the enormous height of eight feet. At the People's Park, Madras, three crops of excellent grass are cut each year, on areas that are not irrigated. Yellow cholum is cultivated almost everywhere as a grail' crop ; but at the Government farm it was cut, several times for fodder, and then allowed to go on to grain. The plant grows so rapidly, that in sixty days after planting the stems will be seven feet high and about an inch and a half thick. This stem is perfectly succulent, and is eaten with avidity by cattle and sheep. Horse gram grows almost anywhere, requires a minimum of care, and gives a good dry fodder or hay. 1Vithout other help than tho ordinary rain, it will give 7000 pounds of green fodder per acre,—a fodder which is very fattening, and well liked by cattle and sheep. If abundance of water be available there is nothing like hariali grass. At the Kistnampett sewage farm, an acre of land produces not far short of 100,000 pounds of green fodder in the twelve months.—Powell; Royle, Him. Bot. p.421 ; Mason ; Williams' Middle Kingdom ; Hooker's Him. Tour. p. 289 ; Mr. Robertson's Report.