FODDER (A. S. f6dor, cog. with Ger. tuner), the food collected by man for the use of the domestic herbivorous quadrupeds. English the term is commonly res trictO to dried herbage, as hay and straw ; but in other languages it is more comprehensive, and in cludes all the food of cattle, except what they gather for themselves in the field. The prin cipal part of the food of the domestic herbivore is furnished by grasses, most of which are eaten by them when fresh and green. Besides the supplies which they receive of the surplus of corn cultivated for human food, they are also, to a considerable extent, dependent on the straw or dried herbage of the corn-plants for their winter provender; and that of many other grasses, cultivated on this account alone, is converted into hay for their use. Hay, be ing cut and rapidly dried while the plant is still full of sap, contains more nutritious matter than the ripened straw of the cereals. In the United States the best grasses are timothy, red top or Rhode Island bent, white top, orchard grass, and June grass or Kentucky blue grass. In California the best fodder grass is the alfalfa of which three or even four crops a year are obtained.
Next to the grasses are ranked the Legumi nose:, affording food for cattle in their seeds— as beans, peas, lentils, lupines, etc.— and in their
herbage, on account of which many of them are cultivated, as clover, lucerne, vetch, tares, sain foin, etc. When consumed green, the produce of these crops is usually termed forage or green forage (See SILAGE). Some of them enter also largely into the composition of hay, being cut and dried with the grasses along with which they have been sown. Some of the Crucifer& are cultivated to a considerable extent as forage plants, cattle being fed on their green herbage, although they are not suitable for drying as fodder. Among these. are kale and cabbage, rape, etc. In some parts of the world cattle are not unfrequently fed on the leaves of trees, as in the Himalayas, where the leaves of different species of Aralia, Grewia, elm and oak are chiefly employed for this purpose, and are col lected, dried and stacked for winter fodder. In seasons of drought in India cattle are kept alive on the green leaves and pods of acacia and Inga did cis. See ALFALFA; CLOVER; GRASSES; HAY; PASTURE; etc.