The Irish standard., 1904-09-03
MOLASSES IN HORSE FEED.
New Morning Feed for Animals in
Europe Is Much Relished
by Them.

by Them.
Man has taken to oats, wheat, corn and
all sorts of cattle food for breakfast
nowadays, and the latest dietetic fad is
to eat grain uncooked Turn about is
fair play" and since hot cakes and mo-
lasses have well-nigh disappeared from
the human breakfast-table, it is only
fair that the animal world should have
its turn at them. The griddle-cakes
have not yet reached the stable, but mo-
lasses has, and the horses enjoy it great
ly, at last accounts, writes Priscilla
Leonard, in Youths Companion.
The new fashion began in Europe, and
the government experiment stations
there have found the results very salts
factory. For several years the value of
sugar in the rations of soldiers in war;
time has been we'll known. Where the
soldiers once were supposed to need
"Dutch courage" in the shape of dram
OF spirits, they now have cakes of sweet
chocolate served out 1t sounds tame, but
1t nerves the arm for battle far better
than brandy. Sugar is concentrated heat
and energy, and if this is true for the
sailor and soldier, why not for the horse
and the steer?
So Europe tried the experiment.
Horses were fed with as much as Is
pounds of molasses day, and thrived on
it. One very successful breakfast food
was four parts of bran, three Of molasses
and one of palm-nut cake. The horses
liked their new dish so much that it was
discovered they would eat very inferior
quality of fodder if only molasses was
poured over it to make it palatable.
The French experiment stations have
fed pigs, COWS and sheep on molasses,
too, giving COW, for example, four or
five pounds of it day. The COWS gave
more milk, and the pigs and sheep fat
tened rapidly. All this was beet-sugar
molasses, and extracted beet pulp was
mixed with it in some cases.
Canada followed, and has made some
interesting experiments with steers.
Three or four pounds of molasses, slight
ly diluted with water. were poured over
cut coarse fodder. The cattle took a
great fancy to it, and the test was
summed up as follows: First, it was
easily assimilated, and changed into
heat, energy and fat; second, it stimu-
lated the appetite of the steers, and third,
it probably made the rest of the food
more dieestible.
The Fiji islands, which are pretty CIV
flied nowadays, and have sugar planta-
tons, have seized upon the new idea;
and at one place 400 horses are fed from
Is to 80 pounds daily, the rest of the ra-
ton being three pounds of corn, four
pounds of bran AMI the green tops of the
sugar-cane. The molasses ration saves,
it is computed, $45 per horse every year,
and the horses are very fond of it and
in fine health.
Uncle Sam has not done much expert
menting yet, but the new food is gain
ing ground in the United States, especial
ly in the cane and beet-sugar regions.
Sugar-beet pulp is already largely fed
to cattle in the western states. Texas
and Maryland has mixed it with corn
meal, cotton-meal, hay and rye straw.
1t must be poured on something that will
absorb it, but almost anything seems to
do, from chopped straw to beet pulp.
This is on the same principle by which
man invented the griddle-cake to eat
with molasses. The experiment stations
have not yet taken up buckwheat cakes.
but then it took man centuries to evolve
the buckwheat cake for himself, and the
wheels of progress move slowly.
At any rate, horses have gone as far
as the molasses, and like it, and every
animal experimental upon has prompt
1y developed sweet tooth. If it be-
comes staple food for cattle, as now
seems very probable, it will make some
differences in farming Hay will cease
to be so necessary a crop; sugar-cans
and sugar-beets will be most important
farm products, and DR.. Johnson's ia.
nous dictionary definition of "oats" will
have to be entirely revised.
Goats" wrote the Scot-hating old doc
tor, Gin England, food for horses; in
Scotland, food for men,"
1t may be that in future men will eat
oats, and horses scorn them. Oatmeal
may be wholesome food; but anyone
who has been reared on flapjacks and
molasses will feel, somehow, that the
horses have the best of it in this reversal
Of the bill of fare.
Malay Tree Dwellers.