44 LUCERNE CULTURE. 



ticularly favoured by being close to a market will find it profitable 

 to sell baled hay. 



The sooner we cease to depend on the direct sale of our lucerne, 

 -either green or baled, the better. The sooner we come to the point 

 of making our lucerne ' l walk to market on its own legs," as the 

 Yankee expresses it, the sooner shall we be on the highroad to suc- 

 cess. The most dependable and most profitable use for most of the 

 crop grown in South Africa is to feed it to our own stock, on the 

 farm on which it has been grown. In this way we do not impoverish 

 our land unduly by taking away everything from it and returning 

 nothing to the soil, as is the case where the whole crop is sold off 

 the land. 



FEEDING VALUE. 



Lucerne is rich in protein elements, which go to form muscle, 

 blood and bone. When fed with maize corn, maize fodder, oat hay, 

 roots and other fat-forming foodstuffs, it makes one of the most 

 valuable rations for all farm stock. In America it is found that 

 the cheapest way to make pork is to allow the pigs to run in the 

 lucerne pasture. 



Lucerne may be cut and fed as green forage, made into hay or 

 pastured. It will not stand heavy pasturing, and great care must 

 be used lest the animals get hoven or op-blatis. Cattle and sheep 

 .are particularly liable to bloat if pastured on a young growth of 

 lucerne, or while it is wet with dew. Horses and pigs d;> nut seem 

 to be injuriously affected by it. For horses and da in- cows kept in 

 town, a plot of lucerne is one of the most profitable garden and 

 orchard crops. In the orchard it acts as a fertilizer to the fruit 

 trees. 



LUCERNE HAY. 



Lucerne hay is undoubtedly the m >st useful form in which 

 this valuable crop can be preserved, and the safest in which it can 

 be fed. But unfortunately it proves one of the most difficult crops 

 to make into hay. Lucerne stalks retain their moisture long after 

 the leaves are dry ; in drying, the leaves become so exceedingly 

 brittle that they are easily broken up into a powder in the handling, 

 before the stalks are fit to bale. If, on the other hand, the crop is 

 baled while too damp, the bale becomes mouldy within, and its 

 Yalue is seriously reduced. 



Shade drying has given the most satisfactory results, and is 

 adopted by many of the larger growers. 



It is impossible to give a hard and fast rule as to the length 

 of time the cut can remain in the field before raking up and carting 

 to the drying shed. This will depend on several factors cloudi- 

 ness of the sky, humidity of the atmosphere, weight and succulence 

 of the crop, etc. and can only be learned by experience. 



In many cases it is found desirable to horse-rake the morning- 

 mown swath into windrows the same afternoon : that mown in the 



