Cultivation of Arable Land. Lucern Sifter-management of. 377 



fome as the moft appropriate in all cafes :* of courfe it may be preferable, as it ad 

 mits of being ploughed between by a fuitablc plough in the room of the harrow. 

 The feed, in whatever method it may have been fown, is, when good, rather 

 rapid in its vegetation, beginning to fprout in the courfe of a week, and foon fpread- 

 ing itfclf over the furface of the land. And the fooner it attains its rough leaf the 

 better, as it is then, like turnips, out of danger of being deftroyed by the fly. Before 

 thefe plants arrive at this ftate of growth, they are liable, efpecially in dry feafons, 

 to be much injured, if not wholly confumed, .by the ravages of the fame fort of 

 infect as that which is fo detrimental to the turnip plant. Where the greateft part 

 of the plants are injured in this way, it is probably the beft method, when the crop 

 has been put in alone, to plough up the land, and fow it down again withfrefti feed 

 as foon as poflible. This is an advantage which the practice of fowing the crop 

 alone has over that of putting it in with thofe of other kinds. 



After-management. As the economy of this plant is fuch as to render it incapable 

 of being grown with much advantage where other forts of plants, whether of the 

 grafs or weed kind, are apt to annoy it, much care and attention fhould of courfe 

 be employed in keeping it clean and free from the intrufion of all fuch vegetable 

 productions. This may be effected in different ways according to the methods iii 

 which the crop has been raifed. Where the broadcaft plan has been purfued, little 

 is neceffary where the land has been properly prepared, after the grain crop has 

 been removed, except keeping all forts of heavy ftock from coming upon it. In a 

 dry feafon, if there be occafion, the field may, however, be fed a little by calves 

 and other very light ftock, but they fhould never be kept long upon the plants at 

 one time. When the fecond cutting has been made in the following year, if any 

 grafs mows itfelf, the land ihould be harrowed over in a moderate manner by a 

 harrow which is not too heavy or too long in the tines, twice or more times, as 

 may be neceffary, in different directions, the graffy matter being collected by a 

 fmall light implement of the fame kind, and removed from the land. This buli- 

 nefs mould be executed as foon in the early part of the fpring as the nature and 

 ftate of the ground will admit, as dry a period as poflible being taken for perform 

 ing the work. In the fucceeding years two fuch harrowings may frequently be re 

 quired, one in the early part of the fpring feafon and the other in the clofe of the 

 fum mer. But in thefe cafes, efpecially where there is much grafs appearing, a 

 much heavier fort of harrow fhould be made ufe of. Some advife one of fuch 

 weight as is fufRcient for four horfes, and which does not fpread more than four or 



* Annals of Agriculture, vol. XXV. 

 VOL. ii. 3 C 



