220 CULTIVATION OF PLANTS. 



The uses of lucern are various and important. The plant is 

 eminently wholesome and nutritive. It is well suited for milch 

 cows, causing them to yield good and abundant milk. It is ad- 

 mirably adapted to the feeding of horses; and it is used with 

 great advantage for the soiling of all kinds of stock. Care is 

 necessary not to give animals too much at a time, especially 

 when it is moist, as they may be hoven or blown with it, in the 

 same way as with clover, and other green food of luxuriant 

 growth. 



The produce of lucern cut four times in the season, varies 

 from five to eight tons to the acre. LOUDON. The probable 

 average, all things favourable, may be set down at seven tons. 

 But well authenticated instances are on record of immensely 

 large crops having been raised.* 



To save the seed, lucern may be treated precisely as the red 

 clover. It is contained in small pods, and more easily sepa- 

 rated than the clover seed. The diseases and enemies of lucern 

 appear also to be the same as those of clover. 



The following system has been adopted for a few years back 

 by the farmers in the state of New York, and many of the 

 eastern states. 



"No crop gives so great a product of forage during the sum- 

 mer, and all domestic animals are fond of and thrive upon it. 

 It is in condition to cut from the 15th to 20th of May, and 

 will give three or four cuttings in a season. An acre of good 

 lucern will keep six cows well from the first cutting; and 

 as soon as the whole has been cut over to supply this num- 

 ber with food, the earliest mown will be fit to cut a second 

 time. I have cultivated lucern ten or a dozen years, and it has 

 been almost my whole dependence for the summer support of 

 my cows and a yoke of oxen. An acre has been worth to me 

 fifty dollars a year. But to insure a profitable crop, certain 

 requisites are necessary, some of which I will name. 



"Lucern must be sown on a dry soil. The roots penetrate 

 four to six feet, and these will neither grow nor live where 

 there is water. Sand, gravel, or loam are the best soils for it. 



"It should be sown on a rich and clean soil. Without the first, 

 the crop will be diminutive; and if weeds abound, they will 

 rob and choke the young lucern, which is feeble during its 

 early growth. The best preparation for it is a crop of potatoes, 

 well manured and well cleaned in tilling. 



"Sow sixteen pounds to the acre broadcast, with half a bushel 

 of winter rye, early in May, in ground well pulverized, harrow 



* See an interesting paper on the Cultivation of Lucern, by JAMES PEDDER, 

 in Farmer's Cabinet, vol. iii. page 292. 



