Book VI. 



PLANTS OF DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 



871 



set in a subovate panicle or spike. It is a '^native of the Canary islands ; but now 

 naturalized in several parts of England, and on the continent. It flowers from June 

 to August, and ripens its seeds from September to October. It ^ ^ ^ 



has long been cultivated in the Isle of Than et, and a few other .v'K /?..,- 



places in Kent and Essex : it is there considered an uncertain crop, 

 both on account of the seasons, it being the latest in ripening its 

 seeds of all the grasses, and the fluctuation of prices. 



5486. The culture of the canary grass consists in pulverising a 

 loamy soil which is in good heart, or manuring it if worn out; 

 though every judicious farmer tries to avoid giving manure to a corn 

 crop unless after a naked fallow. The seeds are sown in rows at 

 about a foot apart, generally by the ribbing process : the season the 

 month of February, and the quantity of seed four or five gallons per 

 acre. The after-culture consists in repeated hoings and weedings. 



5487. The reajnng jirocess selAova commences before the end of 

 September. The culm being leafy, and the seed diflScult to separate 

 from the chaff, it requires to lie in handfuls for a week or more, and 

 to remain more than that time in the field after being tied up in 

 sheaves. In the Isle of Thanet it is cut with a hook, provincially 

 called a twihil and a hink ; by which it is laid in lumps, or wads, of 

 about a sheaf each. The seed clings remarkably to the husk ; and, 

 in order to detach it, the crop is left a long time on the ground, to 

 receive moisture sufficient to loosen the enveloping chaff, otherwise 

 it would be hardly possible to thresh out the seed. The wads are 

 turned from time to time, to have the full benefit of the rains and sun. 



5488. The common produce of canary grass is from thirty to 

 thirty-four bushels per acre ; but under the best management in the 

 Isle of Thanet it is often fifty bushels per acre. 



5489. The usd of the seed is chiefly as food for Canary and other cage and aviary 

 birds. The chaff is superior to that of every other culmiferous plant for horsefood, and 

 the straw, though short, is also very nutritive. 



SuBSECT. 3. Buck-wheat. Poli/gonum Jagopj/rum, Jj. Octan. Trig. L. ; and Polygon 

 necB, J. Ble noir or Ble Sarrazin, Fr. (corrupted from Had-razin, red corn, Celtic] ; 

 Buchiveitzen, Ger. ; Trigo negro, Span.; and Miglio, Ital. {Jig. 598.) 



5490. The buck-wheat, or more properly beech-wheat, (from the 

 resemblance of the seeds to beech mast, as its Latin and German 

 names import, ) is an annual fibrous-rooted plant, with upright flex- 

 uose leafy stems, generally tinged with red, and rising from a foot 

 to eighteen inches in height. The flowers are either white, or tinged 

 with red, and make a handsome appearance in July, and the seeds 

 ripen in August and September. Its native country is unknown ; 

 though it is attributed to Asia. It is cultivated in China and other 

 countries of the east as a bread corn, and has been grown from time 

 immemorial in Britain, and most parts of Europe as food for poultry, 

 horses, and also for its meal to be used in domestic purposes. The 

 universality of its culture is evidently owing to the little labor it re- 

 ' quires : it will grow on the poorest soil, and produce a crop in the 

 course of three or four months. It was cultivated so early as 

 Gerard's time (1597), to be ploughed in as manure : but at present, 

 from its inferior value as a grain, and its yielding very little haulm 

 for fodder or manure, it is seldom grown but by gentlemen in their 

 plantations to encourage game. Arthur Young, however, ** recom- 

 mends farmers in general to try this crop. Nineteen parishes out of 

 twenty, through the kingdom, know it only by name. It has nu- 

 merous excellencies, perhaps as many to good farmers, as any otlier grain or pulse in 

 use. It is of an enriching nature, having the quality of preparing for wheat, or any 

 other crop. One bushel sows an acre of land well, which is but a fourth of the ex- 

 pense of seed-barley. It should not be sown till the end of May. This is important, 

 for it gives time in the spring to kill all the seed-weeds in the ground, and brings no 

 disagreeable necessity from bad weather in March or April, to sow barley, &c. so late 

 as to hazard the crop. It is as valuable as barley, and is the best of all crops for sowing 

 grass-seeds with, giving them the same shelter as barley or oats, without robbing." If 

 all these things were true at the time, they are now only matter of history. 



5491. In the cull%ire of the buck-wheat the soil maybe prepared in different ways 

 according to the intention of the future crop ; and for this there is time till the end of 



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