: 



465 FERN. [SEP 



lers are chosen, until some are worked that requi 

 six horses. 



BURNET. 



Observe not to let any cattle pasture your burnet 

 fields after mowing, either for seed in July, or for a 

 second crop of hay in August ; for the greatest pec 

 liarity of this plant is to afford a full bite in March ; 

 and, if you leave it six or eight inches high in Octo- 

 ber, you will find more the beginning of March, 

 and in possession of the leaves it had in autumn ; for 

 the winter's frosts have not much effecl: on it. Upon 

 this caution, therefore, depends much of the advan- 

 tage of burnet : some who have found fault with it, 

 and asserted that it is unprofitable, have fed off the 

 after-grass in autumn bare, and let their sheep and 

 cattle get into it in winter. It is then no wonder 

 the burnet does not answer the character given of it 

 by others, who have managed in a different manner. 



FERX. 



Cut fern, called, in some places, brakes and brakens. 

 This is most profitable work, and should never be 

 neglected. Carry it into the farm-yard, and build 

 large stacks of it for cutting down through the winter 

 as fast as the cattle will tread it into dung ; also for 

 littering the stables, ox-houses, cow-houses, hog- 

 sties, fatting-shcds, See. By having great plenty of 

 it, you will be able to raise immense quantities of 

 dung, which is the foundation of all good husbandry ; 

 and it is well known, that no vegetable yields such a 

 quantity of salts as fern : from which we are to con- 

 clude, that it is well adapted to the making manure. 

 The good farmer, in this work of bringing fern, 



should 



