1833] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



315 



citlil and ratiunal pliiii, it ought to euperseJe all 

 otiiers. 



From the Qimrieily Journal of Agriculture, (for June.) 

 LVCERXE AND SAIXTFOISf. 



By Mr. Towers. 



Lucerne is the plant of plants! yet its merits, 

 though undeniabip, are but imperfectly under- 

 stooj. It is a native of Enixlaml, belongs to the 

 seventeenth class, fourth order of Linnjeus, (Di- 

 adelphia decandria) and to the natural order of 

 f^eguminosce. It is a member of the genus or 

 lamily Mcdicago, mcdick, distinguished by having 

 ten stamens, one of them distinct from the other 

 nine. One seed-vessel, a legume or pod, spirally 

 twisted or sickle-shaped. The figure of the blos- 

 som is that termed butterfly-shaped, (papiliona- 

 ceous.) One plant (M. saliva) grows to the 

 height of two feet or more ; the stems are upright 

 and firm, the foliage ternate, of a rich lively 

 green, the leaflets saw-cut at their edges, the 

 flowers are produced during June or July, in 

 spikes, and are of a full violet blue. I extract the 

 following from Loudon's Encyclopcedia of Gar- 

 dening, partly to prove the great antiquity of the 

 culture, but particularly to show the fallacy of the 

 concluding observations, and thereby evince the 

 worth of the plant. 



"It is highly extolled by Roman writers; it is 

 also of unknown antiquity in old Spain, Italy, and 

 the south of France; is much grown in Persia 

 and Peru, and mown in both countries all the 

 year round. It is mentioned by Harllib, BIythe, 

 and other early writers, and was tried by Lisle, 

 but it excited little attention till after the publica- 

 tion of Harte's Essays in 1757." 



"But though it has been so much extolled, it 

 has yet Ibund no great reception in this country. 

 If any good reason can be given for this, it is that 

 lucerne is a less hardy plant than red clover, re- 

 quires three or four years before it comes to its full 

 growth, and is for these and other reasons ill- 

 adapted to enter into general rotation." 



I have grown lucerne during four or five years, 

 and previously I had witnessed its great success 

 and extensive culture in the Isle of Thanet, Kent; 

 there it is a sine qua non, because it affects chalky 

 districts, and sends down its wiry elongated roots 

 deep into the interstices of the chalk. It succeeds 

 perfectly in sound loams, and therein appears to 

 me to require little manure. Hardy it is — and as 

 to tardiness, though the plant may acquire 

 strength, and improve during four years, the fact 

 is beyond controversy, that if sown in drills about 

 the third week of March, and the spaces between 

 the rows (from nine to twelve inches) kept clean 

 by the hoe for the first three or four months, the 

 young plants, if fiivored by a mild spring and 

 genial showers, will advance with so much vigor 

 and rapidity, that a first cutting over with the 

 scythe can la e made in June or July, and three 

 other cuttings will follow in pretty regular succes- 

 sion, between the latter period and the first of No- 

 vember. 



Seasons will of course vary ; soils and other 

 auxiliaries may be more or less favorable ; but 

 that which 1 have stated has occurred ; it is the 



result of my own experience and practice. I have 

 (luring five seasons witnessed the abundance of 

 ixrccn food, which is produced l)y a plot of young 

 [)laiits, the supply being ample lor a cow, even 

 within four months after the sowing of the seed. 

 I am thus authorized to refute, upon the evidence 

 of facts, the charges contained in the concluding 

 paragraph of the quotation. In cutting lor a cow 

 it will always be advisable to take the plant when 

 it is tender and juicy, and such it will be when 

 about a loot higli. I have thus cut my plot over 

 six times aficr the first year, but they who leave 

 the i)lants to grow two fi^et high will find the 

 stems rigid, fibrous, and less juicy; and that what 

 they gain in bulk will be lost in time and quality. 



As to the trouble in managing an established 

 crop, it is really nothing. Though I allow it is 

 good to hoe twice during the summer, as the plot 

 is mown, piece by piece, yet one general fork-dig- 

 ging at that period of early spring, when the 

 plaiits exhibit the first symptom of growth, so as 

 to remove every weed and loosen the surfiice of 

 the soil, will be amply sufficient to secure the 

 safety and full development of the herb. Upon 

 the whole, lucerne is a plant of the utmost value ,- 

 for if the seed be good, the ground rich and in 

 heart, and rendered deep in the first instance by a 

 thorough trenching, the young plants start into 

 lively growth, attain strength in the shortest pos- 

 sible time, and yield a bulk o( luxuriant herbage 

 that cannot be surpassed. If the plant require 

 four years to attain its maximum of power, it is 

 still a giant even from its infftncy, advancing from 

 strenffth to strength. 



Well miirht the writer of a recent agricultural 

 report (of Norfolk if I mistake not) recently ex- 

 claim, " What a plant is lucerne !" I re-echo thia 

 introductory "note of admiration," and will un- 

 hesitatingly assert, that if abundance, permanent 

 and unfailing, pnrticularly in shallow soils upon 

 chalk-rock, be the object of the farmer, he will at- 

 tain it by the cultivation of lucerne. The rotation 

 must be improved by it, as in point of produce it 

 will yield double the bulk of grass fi'om an old 

 sedgy meadow. 



The soil which is most favorable to the perfect 

 growth of lucerne is worthy of consideration. Chalk 

 is what it affects, and thereibre we find it most 

 generally cultivated in Kent, and those parts of 

 the southern coast wherein the subsoil is a chalk- 

 rock. But my fine plot grows in a rich, deep, and 

 rather sandy loam ; the subsoil is indeed chalky or 

 marly, but at a considerable depth. It was pre- 

 pared by taking off the turf, trenching to the ex- 

 tent of three spits, and placing the turfs, their 

 grassy surface downward, at the bottom of each 

 trench. Upon these reversed turfs a sprinkling of 

 common salt was given, and the earth was return- 

 ed into the trench, with the precaution to keep the 

 heavier and inferior soil below the fine black earth 

 of the surface. Due jtreparation affords a rich 

 and permanent pasture lor the wandering roots ; 

 and my piece, of hardly one-third of an acre, has 

 been so undeviatingly productive, with little sub- 

 sequent manuring, that, in a showery season, we 

 have Ibund in cutting over the end where we be- 

 gan ready for the scythe again before the mowing 

 was completed. Lucerne is known to produce 

 much milk, perhaps more than any other of the 

 artificial grasses (LeguminostB)', but some com- 

 plain that it communicates an austere or bitter fla- 



