300 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. XXIV. 



allowed to perfect its seed ; and if wheat be sown upon a clover or a rye- 

 grass ley, the product will be found less upon the latter : it is also thought 

 to render the land foul ; and peas have been recommended as better adapted 

 to follow it than wheat. * It is however an excellent grass both for pasture 

 and hay, as all sorts of cattle are fond of it, and horses fed with it are 

 said to preserve their wind better upon it than upon any other kind of hay .f 

 Its chief value, however, consists in the quickness of its growth, which 

 furnishes a very early support to sheep in the spring, and it can be 

 grown upon upland soils where clover will afford but a trifling produce ; 

 in such circumstances, therefore, its use is great and indispensable, and 

 it is sown at the rate of 2 or 2^ bushels to the acre. In soils suflicicntly 

 rich to produce a sward from mixed seeds, it is, however, more commonly 

 grown in a moderate proportion along with clover and trefoil than alone ; 

 for the first cut ensures a good crop of hay, while, if retained for a second 

 year, it affords a great increase of pasture ; and no other mode has been 

 found so effectual for producing a full growth of rich herbage. "When 

 either fed or made into liay, it should however be taken early off the 

 ground, as the stems soon become wiry and run into " bents," which are 

 then rejected by the cattlej. 



The produce of both hay and seeds varies so much from soil and season, 

 that it is im])ossible to state, with any deizree of certainty, what maybe the 

 average amount of either per acre. The first shoot is almost invariably 

 pastured by ewes and lambs ; after which, if it be not wholly fed off by 

 other cattle, that part of the crop designed for mowing is shut up about the 

 middle of May, and may be generally considered to yield — 

 If made into hay, from H to 2 loads, or,l 

 If allowed to stand for seed, 40 bushels J * 

 The seed is, however, thrashed without difficulty ; but the market-prices 

 vary so much, according to the different sorts in request, that it is difficult 

 to state them accurately. 



TARES, 



or, as they are also called. Vetches, are, according to botanists, confined to 

 one species ; but there are several varieties — known as the " white tare," the 

 " strangle vetch," which abounds in chalky and sandy soil ; the " tufted '' and 

 the " v.ood-vetch ;" besides the " broad-leaved vetchling " or " everlasting 

 tare," which, altliough chiefly raised in gardens for the sake of the flowers, 

 and not noticed by farmers, has yet been strongly recommended as afford- 

 ing large crops of superior quality : added to which, a new variety of a hardy 

 kind has been imported from Flanders ; but those commonly cultivated are 

 only the " winter and spring tare," the names of which liave been rather 

 acquired by their time of ripening and being more or less hardy than by 

 any essential difference in their quality. 



Although the seed of the tare — which s-omewhat resembles that of the 

 pea — is very nutritive, and is frequently given with advantage to pigs, yet 

 the chief use to which the plant is applied is that of soiling ; for, although 

 the hay makes hearty food for working cattle, it yet is of a coarse nature, 

 and attended with considerable difficulty in the getting of it into stack. The 



* Young's Norfolk, p. 267; ditto Surv. of Essex, vol. ii. p. 25; ditto of Oxfordbh. 

 p. 190. 



t Beiksh. Rep., p. 2S4. " It is also thought to afford greater nourishment than twice 

 the quantit}' of common hay,"— Bath Soc, Papers, vol, ix. p. 149. 



X Bedfoidsh.K.ep.,p.432. 



