303 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. XXV. 



rye-grass are better calculated to yield more certain crops of herbage to the 

 Scottish farmer than he can generally hope to obtain from tlie exotic 

 grasses. Even in our midland and southern counties it has indeed made 

 but little progress ; for, although universally acknowledged as the most valu- 

 able of all our foreign grasses, when it succeeds, yet the accounts of its 

 success have been so very various that its culture has been checked even 

 upon soils which appear favourable to it. The different result of those 

 experiments appears, however, to have arisen rather from the want of a due 

 knowledge of the precise species of land to which the plant is suitable, than 

 to any uncertainty regarding its growth when sown upon a proper soil. 



The land which is best adapted to lucerne is a rich, light, deep loam, 

 though any friable ground of a deep and open nature will answer, provided 

 it be well drained and ploughed to a good depth ; but it will not thrive 

 upon clays, nor does it succeed welt upon soils that are too dry and parch- 

 ing. In fact, the under stratum is of greater importance than the upper, for 

 the fertility of the latter can be increased by manures and kept open by 

 culture, and may thus for a year or two be rendered productive; but if the 

 lower soil be adhesive, or at all of a wet and clayey nature, the plants which 

 seek for nourishment by striking their roots to a great depth downward, 

 being stopped in their progress by the closeness of the ground, cease to 

 vegetate and finally perish. Thus many farmers who are possessed of fer- 

 tile loams which grow good crops of corn and clover, though lying upon 

 a cold and impenetrable subsoil, have found their expectations deceived 

 when they have calculated upon the advantageous growth of lucerne. 



The best preparation of the land is by a previous crop of turnips fed off; 

 after which it should be opened by deep ploughing, thoroughly cleansed of 

 root weeds, and whatever further manure can be spared should be spit-dung, 

 well incorporated with it. The seed is more frequently sown in drills at 

 the distance of 12, 15, and 18 inches apart* than broad-cast; though we 

 think the practice is rather governed by fashion than by any proof of its 

 superior utility. The motive is doubtless apparently good, for the land 

 appears in a neater state when sown, it requires less seed, and it may 

 be presumed to be more easily kept clean by the hoe ; but the distance at 

 which the drills are placed is too narrow to allow of the effectual operation 



depth, and part upon a deep loam with some wet clay, sown at the rate of 181b. per acre 

 in drills of 12 inches asunder; two acres were also drilled upon a soft black loam of 

 about 18 inches deep with a subsoil of white dry sand, and a small part upon a deep heavy 

 loam. Notwithstanding the unfavourable drouf^ht of that season to the growth of all 

 kinds of grass, and much injury occasioned by the grub, the lucerne yet gave a small 

 crop that year, and in the following was ready for the scythe by the latter end of 

 April, producing a constant succession of food for soiling — in three and four cuttings 

 — imtil the middle of November. It continues to afford nearly equal crops upon all the 

 soils, except the wet clay, where it failed : it was best upon the loam until 1830, when 

 the account is dated; and the Report estimates the produce as being at least one-third 

 more per acre than that of either clover or rye-grass — Trans, of the Highland Soc. 

 N. S. vol. xi. p. 113. See, however, accounts of an opposite nature in the Farmer's 

 Magazine, vol. iv. p. 413, and vol. x. p. 162. 



* Drills have been placed at these different distances on the same plantation ; the 

 reason for doing so being, in case of the season proving moist, those which were sown 

 thick, occasioning the plants to run uj) weak and spindling for want of air at their bot- 

 tom, while those at wider distances then i;ro\v with great luxuriance : the plan was, 

 therefore, not injudiciously adopted to meet those different circumstances. — Malcolm's 

 Mod. Husb. vol. iii. p. 65. An economical mode of sowing the seed has been adopted 

 by a Scotch farmer, who wished to avoid the expense of a drill machine ; which consists 

 in putting the seed into a bottle, with a piece cut out of the side of the cork, or a quill 

 put into it, so as to allow the seed to run from it fast enough for the purpose, — Trans, 

 of the High. Soc. N. S. vol, ii. p. 123. 



