376 PHYSIOLOGY AT THE FARM. 



but as a hedge it does not answer well unless of great breadth, 

 being apt to get naked below. Sown on a mound, however, 

 the sides may be cut and the prunings used as green food, 

 while the fence is thus rendered close at bottom and durable. 

 The most profitable use of furze, whether sown or grown wild, 

 is that of using it as green food for horses. It must be bruised, 

 for which purpose machines have been invented.* Dry furze 

 bruised is sometimes used to feed asses, and even horses, at 

 least in times of great scarcity. Green, it is used in all seasons. 

 Furze is sometimes killed by severe winters. 



Artificial Grasses. The clovers, the chief of what have 

 been called the artificial grasses, belong in botany to the 

 Leguminosce, and to the genus Trifolium, so named from the 

 three leaves or leaflets common to the genus. 



Trifolium minus vel filiforme, Lesser Yellow Trefoil or 

 Suckling Clover. This is a fibrous-rooted perennial, which 

 flowers in May, June, and July. It grows on very dry pas- 

 tures and poor sandy downs. It is too small to be of much 

 value in pastures, but it affords an agreeable mixture in lawns, 

 particularly useful where the soil is too dry for white clover. 

 It is one of the plants recommended to be sown, to the extent 

 of from 1 to 2 Ib. per imperial acre, for fine lawns, bowling- 

 greens, and the like, kept constantly under the scythe, and for 

 warrens or light sandy downs. The average weight of a bushel 

 of the seeds is 64J Ib., and the number of seeds in an ounce 

 rises to 54,000.f 



Trifolium pratense, Common Eed Clover or Purple Trefoil. 



This well-known plant, common in meadows and pastures, 



flowers during the summer months. Its root is fibrous, hardly 



creeping, perennial. It is popularly known as honeysuckle 



clover, and when cultivated is known as broad clover, owing 



* See Stephens's < Book of the Farm,' vol. i. p. 318. 

 t See Lawson on ' Herbage and Forage Plants.' 



