878 



PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part III. 



5576. Tliere are no varieties of the lucern deserving the notice of a cultivator. 



5577. What is called the yellow lucern is the Medici\go falckta {Lucerne en famille, or Luzerne de 

 Suede, Fr. Jig. 776.), a much hardier and coarser plant, common in 

 7 / fi #~ \li,lK^ several parts of England, but not cultivated any where except in some 



i I o ^S*^sSSfr> /^ poor soils in France and Switzerland, 



5578. Medicugo maculata and miiricdta are cultivated in France, but 

 to a very limited extent on poor soils. M. lupulina (lupuline, or 

 Minette doree, Fr.) resembles our well known hop trefoil, black (from 

 its seeds) nonsuch, or yellow clover j but it is seldom cultivated in 

 Britain. 



5579. The soil for lucern must be dry, friable, inclining 

 to sand, and with a subsoil equal to it in goodness. Unless 

 the subsoil be good and deep, it is in vain to attempt to 

 cultivate lucern. According to Young, the soils that suit 

 lucern are all those that are at once dry and rich. If, says 

 he, they possess these two criteria, there is no fear but they 

 will produce large crops of lucern. A friable deep sandy 

 loam on a chalk or white dry marly bottom is excellent for 

 it. Deep putrid sand warp on a dry basis, good sandy loam 

 on chalk, dry marl or gravel, all do well ; and in a word, 

 all soils that are good enough for wheat, and dry enough 

 for turnips to be fed on the land, do well for lucern. If 

 deficient in fertility, they may be made up by manuring, 

 but he never yet met with any land too rich for it. 



5580. The preparation of the soil consists in deep ploughing and minute pulverisation ; and, in our 

 opinion, the shortest way to effect this, is to trench it over by the spade to two or three feet in depth, 

 burying a good coat of manure in the middle or at least one foot from the surface. This is the practice 

 in Guernsey, %vhere lucern is highly prized. 



5581. The climate for lucern, as we have already hinted, must be warm and dry; it 

 has been grown in Scotland and Ireland, and might probably do well in the southern 

 counties of the latter country, but in the former it has not been found to answer the 

 commendations of its admirers. 



5582. The season most proper for sowing lucern is as early as practicable in the 

 spring months, as in this way the plants may be fully established before the season be- 

 comes too hot. The latter end of March, for the more southern districts, may be the 

 most proper period ; and the beginning of the following month for those of the north. 

 When sown late, there is more danger of the plants being destroyed by the fly, as it has 

 been observed by Tull. If the plants are intended to be transplanted out in the garden 

 method, it will also be the best practice to sow the seed-bed as early in the spring as 

 the frosts will admit, in order that they may be strong, and fit to set out about the 

 beginning of August. 



5583. The manner of sowing lucern is either broad-cast or in drills, and either with or without an ac- 

 companying crop of corn for the first year. Broad-cast, with a very thin crop of barley or other spring 

 corn, is generally, and in our opinion very properly, preferred. Arthur Young, who has treated largely 

 on this plant, observes, that " the greatest success by far that has been known is by the broad-cast method, 

 which is nearly luiiversal among the best lucern farmers, even among men who practise and admire the 

 drill husbandry in many other articles. But as they mostly (not all) depend on severe harrowing for keep- 

 ing their crops clean, which is a troublesome and expensive operation, he still ventures to recommend 

 drilling ; but very diftferent drilling from that which has been almost universally practised, viz. at distances 

 of eighteen inches or two feet. Objections to these wide intervals are numerous. Tf kept clean hoed, the 

 lucern licks up so much dirt, being beaten to the earth by rain, &c., that it is unwholesome, and the plants 

 spread so into these spaces, that it must be reaped with a hook, which is a great and useless expense. For 

 these reasons, as well as for superiority of crop, he recommends drilling at nine inches, which in point of 

 produce, mowing, and freedom from dirt, is the same as broad- cast ; and another advantage is, that it 

 admits scarifying once a year, which is much more powerful and effective than any harrowing. These 

 facts are sufficient to weigh so much with any reasonable man, as to induce him to adopt this mode of 

 drilling, as nearer to broad-cast by far than it is to drills at eighteen to twenty-four inches, which open to a 

 quite different system, and a set of very different evils. Nine-inch rows might practically, but not literally, 

 be considered as broad-cast, but with the power of scarifying. And in regard to the material point, of with 

 or without corn, two considerations, he says, present themselves. One is the extreme liability of lucern 

 to be eaten by the fly, which does great mischief to many crops when very young, and against which the 



f rowing of corn is some protection. The value of the barley or oats is another object not to be forgotten. 

 t is also gained in the lirst year's growth of the lucern, which is very poorly productive even if no corn 

 be sown ; so that he must own himself clearly an advocate for drilling in among corn, either between the 

 rows of nine-inch barley, or across drilled barley, at a foot, if perhaps the latter is the best method, as there 

 is less probability of the crop being laid to the damage of the lucern. The quantity of seed-corn should 

 also be small, proportioned to the richness of the land, from one bushel to a bushel and a half, according 

 to the fertility of the soil ; another security against the mischief of lodging. If these precautions are taken, 

 it would be presumptuous to say that success must follow, that being always, and in all things, in other 

 hands than ours ; seed may prove bad, the fly may eat and drought prevent vegetation ; but barring such 

 circumstances, the farmer may rest satisfied that he has done what can be done, and if he do succeed, the 

 advantage will be unquestionable," 



5584. The quantity of seed, when the broad-cast method is adopted, is said to be from 

 fifteen to twenty pounds per acre, and from eight to twelve if drilled. The seed is 

 paler, larger, and dearer than that of clover : it is generally imported from Holland, 

 and great care should be had to procure it plump and perfectly new, as two-years- 



