CULTIVATION OF GRASSES. 223 



One of our farmers has kept eight cattle (two oxen 

 and six cows) upon an acre of lucerne, during the season, 

 with a range of three or four acres of pasture. Say, how- 

 ever, the produce is equal to a full crop of red clover in 

 value, then, yearly for nine or ten years, (its ordinary 

 duration in a productive state,) at an annual expense of 

 harrowing and rolling, and a triennial expense of top-dres- 

 sing, it will be of sufficient value to induce farmers, who 

 have suitable soils, to lay down a few acres of this crop 

 near their homesteads. 



To save seed, the lucerne may be treated precisely as 

 red clover, i. e., obtained from the second cutting, or even 

 the third, the crop being left to ripen its seed. It is 

 easily threshed, the grains being contained in small pods, 

 which readily separate under the flail, threshing-machine, 

 or clover-mill. 



§ 2. Cultivated Grasses. 



" The forage, hay, and pasture grasses," says Lou- 

 don, "of which we are now about to treat, are found 



" It was very luxuriant, and cut twice before the 20th June, for 

 plough-horses, kept in the stable — being, when they began to cut each 

 time, about 16 inches high — the average height, taking the first and 

 last cutting, each time, about 20 inches. On the 24th of July, cut 

 and made into hay, produced 1000 lbs., or two tons to the acre. On 

 the last of August cut a fourth time, produced 600 lbs., or 2400 to the 

 acre. The fifth crop is not cut, but is now, the first of October, 20 

 inches high, and very promising in its appearance. If we have no 

 severe frosts before the middle of this month, it will produce about 

 6 cwt. of hay. 



Produce and Expense of Acre JSTo. I. 

 40 loads of black earth from an adjoining swamp, at Is. 



per load, £2 00 00 



Cutting five crops and making them into hay, at 8s. . 2 00 00 



Tons. Cwt. 

 Two first crops, valued at 5 cwt. each, or 2 

 Third crop in hay, .... 2 



Fourth crop do. .... 1 4 



Fifth, estimated at .... 1 



6 4 



6 tons 4 cwt., at 2s. 6d £15 10 00 



Expenses above, . . . . . . 4 00 00 



Profit, £11 10 00 



