200 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



and none from which so large a product can be obtained from 

 an acre, save only Indian corn, in a favorable climate and soil. 

 It is stated confidently, but perhaps extravagantly, that an acre 

 of good lucern will keep four or five horses from May to Octo 

 ber, when cut just as the flower opens. It requires a dry, rich, 

 loamy soil. The climate of Scotland is said to be too cold for 

 it ; but I have known very good crops of it produced in the 

 neighborhood of Boston, New England. Clover the common 

 red clover furnishes an excellent article for soiling, scarcely in 

 ferior to any thing which can be found ; but its cultivation is too 

 familiar for me to enlarge upon it. 



The article mainly depended on in England for soiling, es 

 pecially for horses, is vetches or tares. These furnish a very 

 large amount of feed, and there is at least one kind which may 

 be cut more than once in a season. Of the vetches which are 

 cultivated for the purpose of soiling in England there are two 

 kinds ; one, which will bear to be sown in the autumn ; the other, 

 which is sown in the spring, to afford late summer or autumn 

 feed. As well as I could learn, there is no observable difference 

 in them, but that one will endure the winter, and consequently 

 will afford early spring feed, and the other kind will not endure 

 the winter ; and the general impression is, that these peculiarities 

 are the result of cultivation and habit, rather than of original 

 constitution, if the term may be so applied. 



After the early and trying part of the season is past, the crops 

 of turnips, swedes, mangel-wurzel, and various tribes of cabbage, 

 under industrious and good cultivation, will furnish an abundant 

 supply of food ; in respect to some of them, first in their leaves, 

 and next in their bulbs and roots. Rape is likewise cultivated 

 i r ery extensively, especially in Lincolnshire, for the folding and 

 feeding of sheep. As far as my observation extended, it is not 

 usually cut for sheep ; but a temporary fence is put up round a 

 portion of the field, and they are turned in upon it. This being 

 eaten, another enclosure is made ; and in this way they succes 

 sively enter upon the different portions of the field. 



That a variety of food is conducive to the health of the ani 

 mals, and to the increase of the milk of the cows, seems well 

 established by general opinion and by actual experiment. Dried 

 food is much less conducive to milk and to fatness than green ; 



