3S2 Cultivation of Arable Land. Lucern After-management of. 



./ t/ w* \J 



part of his (lock. With horfes, in this way, it has been found by fomc to anfwer 

 better than any other fort of green food that has been tried the number of cuttings 

 that it admitted of being, on different foils and under different modes of culture, 

 from about three to five, affording a produce of green herbage adequate to the fup- 

 port of from three to four or five horfes for a period of nearly fix months in the 

 fummer feafon. And though much of this vaft advantage, in the fuppcrt of thcfc 

 animals, may with propriety be afcribcd to the economy of the confumptionof the 

 food that unavoidably takes place in this excellent practice,* the real produce in green 

 food is without doubt larger than in moft other grafs crops. The broadcast crops 

 in the trials of fome cultivators appear to have been more profitable in this mode 

 of confuming the produce than thofe of either the drilled or tranfplanted methods 

 o/ culture. In the practice of M r. Hall, the former fupported from four to five 

 horfes for twenty-fix weeks, while the crops tranfplanted in rows two feet afunder 

 only afforded produce fufficient for the keeping of three. And in thofe of Mr. 

 Clayton, in the broadcaft without grain, five horfes were kept from the middle of 

 May t.ll Michaelmas, while that drilled in equidiftant rows, at thediflance of eigh 

 teen inches, only fupported four.f There are many other facts that lead to the 

 fame conclufion. 



On very rich foils the drilled lucern will, without doubt, when the plants are 

 kept perfectly clean, and the mould well ftirred between the rows and laid to their 

 roots, afford an abundant produce, perhaps more fo than in the broadcafl ; but to 

 do this great attention in the culture muft be beftowed. 



In its application in the foiling of cows and other forts of cattle in the fold-yards, 

 and in the feeding and fattening of oxen, its importance is equally great. It is found 

 that in foiling cows, the proportion of this fort of food confumed, in twenty-four 

 hours, is from about fixty or feventy to upwards of a hundred pounds, in thofe 

 which are of the middling-fizcd kinds ; an acre maintaining in the proportion of 

 about four for twenty weeks. In other trials larger proportions of frock have been 

 kept by this practice. In feeding cattle with this fort of food in its green (rare 

 care is neceffary, however, not to give the animals too largely at a time, efpecially 

 when it is moift, as they maybe boven or blown with it in the fame way as with 

 clover. 



The trials in fattening bullocks, or other cattle, with this green fodder are not 

 numerous ; but they are fufficiently fo to prove its utility in fuch applications 



* Young s Kaftcrn Tour. vol. IV. f- Ibid, 



