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EXPERIMENTS ON Part lit 



year's produce, v/e fliould flill confider, that as the plants increafe 

 every year in bulk and vigour, (and where they will Hop I am not 

 yet able to determine,) the produce will be proportioned to that in- 

 creafe, and confequently the crop of each fuccecding year will be 

 p-reater than that of the laft. 



" The crops I am going to fpeak of, are thofe of the fecond and 

 third year: but my calculations will be made on that of the third. 

 year. It is proper to remember that the years 1753 and 1754, 

 were uncommonly dry, infomuch that fometimes, not a drop of 

 rain, nor fcarce any dew, fell between the cutting of one crop and 

 that of another. The feafons were fo unfavourable to the pro- 

 dudions of grafs, that hay rofe to an exceffive price. 



" I fliall firft fay what was the ftate of the plants in their third 

 year, a^d afterwards how much hay they yielded. 



State of the plants hi their third year. 



♦» A S the part of the plant which I now confider, is that which is 

 -^^ buried in the earth, I uncovered numbers of them, that I 

 might be able to judge of their general ftate. I was greatly ftruck 

 with the effedl which tranfplanting had had upon them. Inftead of 

 one perpendicular root, which they ufually have, all thefe plants had 

 three, four, five, and fometimes more, almofl equally big roots. 

 They were, in general, three quarters of an inch in diameter, and 

 proceeded from the original root, which was now at leaft an inch 

 in diameter, and in many of the plants an inch and a half» After 

 the moft careful fearch which I could poffibly make, I could not 

 find one plant of lucerne fown in the common way,tho' it had flood 

 twelve, twenty or more years, whofe tap-root had grown to the big- 

 nefs of an inch diameter : few of them were above half, or at mofb 

 three quarters of an inch thick. This difference is very great. 



" I likewife found that the roots of the tranfplanted lucerne had 

 produced another kind of roots, of which I faw none about the roots 

 of tlie old lucerne. Thefe were a great number of fibrous roots, 

 fome of which were already one-twelfth of an inch in diameter, 

 and looked as if they would alfo become principal roots. 



" The flalks feem to rife out of the earth ; and from the firft time 

 of catting them, a kind of head forms jufl above ground, which ex- 

 tends itfclf every year. The firft year this head was two or tiiree 

 inches wide : the fecond year, it was generally about fix inches over j 

 and this third year,alnioft half the plants have a crown ten or twelve 



inches 



