ON WHITE MUSTARD. 289 



were invariably better after the trifolium tlian after tlie 

 tares. 



Do not let the farmer dream lie is buying- the scarlet 

 trefoil seed this year at 8^. per bushel ; if he does, he may 

 well be surprised at finding- it 21., and cheap, too. One peck 

 and a half will give an acre of green food next May worth 

 nearly double the money ; a second peck and a half, on good 

 land, will give three waggon-loads of stover j the remaining- 

 peck will produce from 10 to 12 bushels of seed. 



The first step towards a good crop is good seed. I have 

 seen bushels of seed sold for trifolium that was not worth its 

 Aveight in sand ; and when the price g-ets hig-h, it floods in 

 from France ; seeds of all kinds, good and bad, perchance 

 mixed with dodder and other parasites. 



I have begun cutting- the trifolium for the horses on the 

 14th of May, and for stover the 19th. This gives time for 

 turnips, if the land is calculated for them. 



Agricultural Gazette, June 184G. 



Art. LXIY.— on WHITE MUSTARD. 



By Mr. Thomas Cooke BuRRoroHES. (Prize Essav.) 



[The cultivation of the ^^^lite Mustard (Sinapis alia of Linnaeus), the 

 plant commonly grown in our gardens for early salading, has of late years 

 been attracting the notice of agriculturists as a useful fallow crop, either 

 for sheep-feed or for ploughing in as a green manure. The consideration 

 of its properties and uses forms the subject of a Prize Essay in the 

 Journal of the It. A. S. E., from which the following abridged account is 

 taken.] 



There is scarcely any soil, however poor (provided the cli- 

 mate be adapted to it), upon which it will not g-row ; but, of 

 course, its luxuriance will be in proportion, other things being* 

 efpial, to the fertility of the soil. A good friable turnip soil, 

 capable of jiroducing good crops of wheat, with a drv sub- 

 soil, is well adapted to its growth; upon peat soils it 

 flourishes with extreme luxuriance. 



To disperse it as completely as possible over the land, the 

 most approved method of sowing- it is by a seed-drill havinu: 

 no coidters, or by a barrow-seed engine ; a well-practised 

 and careful seedsman may sow it evenly enouo-h by hand to 

 answer all })nrposes. 



V 



