GORSE, AS CATTLE FOOD.

Colonist, Volume VIII, Issue 753, 13 January 1865, Page 3

GORSE, AS CATTLE FOOD.

To the Editor of The Colonist,

Bni, —! was glad when [ saw you calling the at teiiii'.:! iii'.ig-i.'iilturist.-e to the importance of culti.

V:U in;. l; \t, >;'?

■i-> a (M.tilo-ibod, for though it is a bush

i\ui ;.- ;ivi:ij; many persons much trouble to keep in >>Hei\ :i!i.J it .mr-s have been glad to rid their land of it lutogei her, it- is a gotnl friend to the farmer if rightly traiin'il and used.

My expni'iim.'e leads me to know that cattle may y kej'i iv capital condition when fed upon crushed >r>e, wit.!i only the addition of a small amount of ■y fool. Lot our dairy farmers—taking instrucons IVum the extracts you published in your issue !.'Tuesday la.*t—try the experiment with their milch r-.v.s, and note the resuli, with wbirh they will I .iui. ho .siit-isfitfd, espeoiilly such as have hilly land iisi.iited to ihe growth of other crops. Many of our rulers have steep banks or shingly patches which ley may thus turn to good account. But supposing ley planroil an acre of their best land with gorse, icy would lose nothing by it for if it did not answer ieir anticipations, the luscious young plants ploughed to the ground would manure the laud sufficient to iy for all outlay. Let ill your agricultural readers ho are interested in this matter turn to any writer i this subject, whether here, in the old country, or i the Continent, and I think they will learn how Juable gorse is as cattle food. I knew a dairyman oue of the largest towns in England who kept from sty to eighty milch cow?, all stall-fed, and fed them most solely upon crushed gorse, the gorse beimj ken principally from the banks of a canal in the iighborliood, and therefore not so succulent as either iltivnted gorse or gorse so luxuriant as it grows in ew Zealand would be. The milk yielded by the 'Ws so fed was rich and abundant, and was unsuris3od by the milk of any dairyman in the district ovvever, as one practical proof is worth a long reidg, I conclude by recommending a trial of the ;periment. I am, &c, CULTIVATOR.