336 



Lucerne. 



Vol. IV, 



but experiments on a small scale will soon 

 point that out. The sub-soil for this crop is 

 of much more importance than the surface, 

 and the most prolific crops have been ob- 

 tained from soils supposed too barren to 

 produce any profitable yield whatever. Ashes 

 form an excellent top-dressing for lucerne, 

 as they contain no seeds of weeds, and this 

 is a circumstance of incalculable importance 

 to its future well being : all other manures 

 should be applied during the frosts of win- 

 ter, for before the seeds of the weeds, which 

 might be contained in them, can vegetate 

 in the spring, the lucerne has started, and 

 will then keep the lead : and when the crop 

 has taken full possession of the soil, nothing 

 appears more tenacious of life, or equal to 

 cope with it, especially during a season of 

 drought, when all other vegetation has dis- 

 a})peared from the face of the earth ; then, 

 I have often known it to shoot away at the 

 rate of two inches in height every twenty- 

 four hours. It has been the custom in some 

 places, to raise the crop on a seed-bed, and 

 transplant the roots, but this is changing 

 the nature of the plant, for its peculiar char- 

 acteristic — a tap-rooted plant — is thus de- 

 stroyed ; and however much it might there- 

 after flourish on good soils, it is not so filled 

 to pump up, from the depth of twelve or 

 fourteen feet, moisture sufficient to sustain a 

 crop of eleven tons per acre, during the hot- 

 test season of the year ; nor is it, after that, 

 so well able to cope with the weeds, as its 

 strength is never so great as when its roots 

 are deep, and forms a woody crown about 

 three inches in diameter, bidding defiance 

 even to the plough-share, and seeming to 

 gain strength from the roughest treatment. 



Nor is the very general practice of drilling 

 the seed, and keeping the rows clear of 

 weeds by the hoe, at all to be recommended ; 

 it is thus made to flourish, but it is at the 

 cost of too much labour and expense ; nor 

 have I ever known a hoed crop at all to be 

 compared with very many that I have seen 

 broadcast, and which had been raised with 

 little expense or labour. The observation, 

 at page 258, vol. 3, of the Cabinet, that 

 unless the lucerne crop is sown in drills, and 

 kept clear by hoeing, it will never answer to 

 the farmer, is erroneous — nothing can be 

 farther from the fact — tiiick sowing in the 

 autumn or late summer on a clean and suita- 

 ble soil, will render quite unnecessary drill- 

 ing and hoeing; and will insure large'r crops 

 than can be obtained by any other^iode of 

 management. 



Lucerne has been denominated an impa- 

 tient crop, but on soils when suitable, nothing 

 succeeds so well, or with less trouble; the 

 seeds start in a very few days, and the 

 growth of the plants is at first as decided 



and rapid as the common red clover; but it 

 must be admitted that after this, it seems 

 ready to give way to a crop of weeds, and 

 the most promising prospect is often destroy- 

 ed in a few days. But to those who are 

 acquainted with its habits, the cultivation is 

 neither difficult or hazardous; and when it 

 once decides the question " to grow, or not 

 to grow," in the affirmative, there is no crop 

 on earth that can at all keep pace with it ; 

 and it is then a crop for life, or thereabouts. 

 The best crops which I ever knew, were 

 those which grew on the sea-shore, not two 

 feet from high water mark — nay, I have 

 known it grow and flourish on the sea-beach, 

 overflown by every spring tide, without suf- 

 fering the least injury from it. Those crops 

 grew on white sand, with not a particle of 

 earth to be seen in its composition, and there 

 were, of course, no weeds to impede its 

 growth ; but, at the depth of several feet, 

 this bed of sand was found resting upon a 

 substance of fine light mould, into which the 

 roots had penetrated, and produced crops 

 which were truly astonishing in their bulk 

 and vigour; and upon these fields it had 

 been customary to tether cows during the 

 whole summer, for ages, without manure, and 

 yet no diminution of its strength was ever 

 dreamt of. During the whole of the winter, 

 not a blade of lucerne was to be seen, the 

 roots had all been covered by a light coat of 

 sand, which had been blown up from the 

 beach : this protected the crop from the 

 frosts; and very early in the spring, the 

 shoots of lucerne would be found penetrating 

 it in all directions, like asparagus plants, 

 and in a few days they would spread the sur- 

 face like a carpet, furnishing, in about the 

 space of two weeks, excellent food for cattle 

 of every description, and upon which hogs 

 would fatten, fit for slaughter ; it being re- 

 markable that these last, after masticating 

 even the woody stalks of the plant, would 

 not eject any portion of it, but swallow the 

 whole. 



In my next, I may resume the subject of 

 the cultivation of this remarkable crop, and 

 in the meantime offer my best wishes for 

 the success of your valuable work. 



ViR. 



May 2Slli, 1840. 



P. S. Any of our friends intending to enter 

 into the cuUivation of lucerne, should im- 

 mediately prepare, by summer-fallowing the 

 land, harrowing after each ploughing, to en- 

 courage the weeds to vegetate, destroying 

 them by turning down, and harrowing for a 

 fresh crop immediately. 



" A trifling debt makes a man yonr debtor, 

 but a more weighty one makes him your 

 enemy." — Lat. 



