This is the dried stalk of one of the shorgum tribe of plants, which is also known as the Chinese sugar-cane. It is a summer crop cut in the autumn. It grows to five or six feet high, and is cut and stored by the natives as a fodder for the cattle. It would to the new-comer appear to be a most unsuitable article of food, but is full of saccharine matter, tasting quite sweet when chewed in the mouth, so much so that in parts a rough sugar is extracted from it, but to look at is like a bundle of dried reeds. Animals of all sorts are very fond of it, and I have frequently fed my horses on it for days together in out-of-the-way places where no grass was to be obtained. It is not used as a regular horse fodder, but it does well for it on a pinch.
In the East all grain is threshed out by the primitive process of putting it in a circle and driving bullocks round on it, and in this process the grain is trodden out of the ear, the straw being split and broken up by the animals' feet into small fragments from one-eighth to two or three inches in length, which is called "bhoosa." This is the staple food of the working cattle, and is also used for horses. It is a most important item of the crop, and in the rural economy of an Indian village almost as much is thought of it as the grain itself. Wheat and barley straw makes what is called "white bhoosa," and gram and the various pulses "missa bhoosa." Both these can be used as horse food; in fact, on the Afghan frontier they get nothing else, and many natives feed their animals entirely on it, never giving them grass; but although they will eat it, and for a time keep condition, it is not to be recommended. If it has to be used, and it is possible to obtain any grass, they should be mixed together. A small quantity of "bhoosa" mixed in the feed will make a greedy feeder masticate it. "White bhoosa" looks like badly chopped straw-chaff. "Missa bhoosa" is of a dark colour, the particles not being straight-like sticks, but bent about, and frequently there are a quantity of the leaves of the plant mixed with it. Care should be taken that both sorts are not mouldy, which is very apt to be the case, as the native farmers store it in large quantities during the winter, and when the new crop comes on, if there is any of last year's left, it is what they try and sell. Being stacked in the open, it is exceedingly likely to get damaged by the rain. "Bhoosa" should have a clean, fresh smell like sweet straw, not be discoloured or have any patches of mould about it, and be free from impurities such as sticks, thorns, or pieces of mud or stones.