HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 327 



last sixteen years, as it certainly will if properly managed, then 

 sixteen parts of the down should be sainfoin, and as many more 

 ])arts as there are years necessary for tillage, before the ground 

 should be sowed with it again : suppose this period to be five years, 

 the portions would then be 16 sainfoin; 1 sainfoin pared and 

 burnt, and under turnips ; 1 barley or oats ; 1 clover ; 1 wheat ; 

 1 turnips ; 1 barley or oats, and with this crop sainfoin sown 

 again = 22. In another part we are informed that sainfoin is also 

 a great improvement in thin, loose, dry, sandy loams, upon marl 

 or chalk bottoms. 



Thin soils that wear out, or tire of clover, are laid down to 

 great advantage with it, will last twenty years, and pay the 

 Farmer as well as his best corn crops. If a flock of sheep be an 

 object of primary importance, this plant will afford them plenty 

 of dry food for winter, in hard weather. An acre of indifferent 

 land will yield two tons of sainfoin dry, and therefore twenty 

 acres will serve 1000 sheep for a month, supposing a sheep eats 

 three pounds of hay in a day, which is a large allowance. Now the 

 expense of an acre of sainfoin, including fourteen shillings for 

 rent, tithe, and poor, is about one pound ; whereas, that of an acre 

 of turnips will be two pounds seven shillings. Eight acres and a 

 half of turnips, then, balance twenty acres of sainfoin. Now 

 1000 sheep will eat two acres and a half of turnips in a day, and, 

 therefore, seventy-five acres will be required for a month ; or at 

 the lowest calculation, twenty-four acres ; the expense of which is 

 56/. 8s., to be set against 20/., the expense of sainfoin.* 



* Besides the grasses and other plants that have been mentioned in this series, 

 there are a variety of different plants which form a part of the produce of dry sandy 

 rough pastures, the principal of which will now be briefly noticed. 



The late ingenious Editor of the Farmer's Journal, Benjamin Iloldich, Esq., be- 

 fore his decease, had nearly completed an interesting treatise on the weeds which 

 infest tillage lands : this he bequeathed to my care ; and as it contains much new 

 and highly useful practical information, compressed in a small space, I trust, in a 

 short time, to be enabled to submit the same to the Public. 



1. Carduus acaulis. Dwarf Thistle. E. Bot. 161 ; Flo. Dan. 1114. — A dwarf 

 plant, but spreading to the breadth of a foot. The leaves grow close to the ground, 

 are very prickly, and prevent cattle from browsing near them. Tliough it appears 

 to be only a biennial plant, it is certainly one of the most pernicious weeds in these 

 soils; being suffered to grow in hedge-rows, and in the corners of fields, the ordinary 

 means of destroying it in the body of the pasture, by mowing, is rendered ineffectual. 

 Mowing, or stocking up thistles, is only a palliative remedy ; but it may be ren- 

 dered more effectual with respect to the destruction of the annual and biennial 



