Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Fodder

FODDER, denotes any kind of dry food provided for horses, or other cattle: it is more particularly applied to hay and straw.

Having already specified those vegetables which may be employed with the greatest advantage in the feeding of oxen, cows, bulls, &c. we shall here offer only a few observations supplementary to those slated under the article Cattle.

The saving of expence in obtaining manure, is an object of great importance to farmers; but there are few, comparatively speaking, who pay a due regard to this circumstance; and, by disposing of their hard straw (such as that of barley, rye, &c.) for the purpose of thatching, they are under the necessity of purchasing dung, which expence might be completely obviated, by employing such straw in feeding their oxen and other dry cattle.—See Straw-Cutter.

Considerable advantages might likewise be derived from the use of compressed fodder, invented by Mr. Lawson, of Rotherhithe-street, London. This consists of the haulms of peas, beans, potatoes, and the tops of carrots, which, after being cut off and dried, are mixed with certain portions of bruised corn, hay, fir-tops, bran, and broken oil-cake, and then formed into a stack, with clover, either in layers, or intermingled with that plant. To these articles, Mr. Lawson directs a quantity of straw to be added, in order to prevent the compressed food from becoming mouldy, together with a small portion of common salt, which will both preserve and improve the fodder. The saving that might arise from the use of such provender, Mr. Lawson estimates at not less than one-eighth part of the corn and herbage now consumed in racks, and given in an unbroken state, by which means the greater part of its most nutritious properties is, to many kinds of cattle, totally lost: whereas, by breaking the corn and other ingredients, no part can possibly remain in an undigested state, such as is frequently evident in horses fed with whole corn, which they void with their dung, being as perfect and entire as when it was first taken from the bin. Facts, like these, require no farther exposition, and we earnestly recommend them to the attention of every intelligent farmer and grazier.