8S4 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



proper for a cow pasture, and conjectures that those plants, being found among good ones, have qualities 

 given them which do not properly belong to them : he is likewise inclined to make the same conjecture 

 in resi)ect to narrow-leaved plantain, ribwort, or rib-grass, and should even have preferred dandelion and 

 sorrel to it; but he is cautious of opposing theory to practice. 



5627. Br. Anderson states, that narrow-leaved plantain or rib-grass is well liked by horses and cattle, 

 and yields a very good crop upon rich ground tending to dampness, if it is at the same time soft and 

 spongy ; but that upon any soil which has a tendency to bind, or upon dry ground, it furnishes a very 

 scanty crop. It has been made use of in some parts of Yorkshire as a summer grass. As an article of 

 pasturage for cattle and sheep, it is there in high esteem : it is not, however, well eaten by horses. As 

 an article of hay, it is held to be detrimental to the crop ; retaining its sap an unusual length of time, 

 and when fully dry falling into a small compass, or being broken into fragments and left behind in the 

 field, 



5628. The culture of the plantain is the same as that of clover; its seed is about the same size, and con- 

 sequently the same proportion of it will sow an acre. 



5629. The whin,furxe, or gorxe {Ajonc, Jane tnarin. Genet ^pineux, Ft. ; C/Nex europa;"*a L.,Jig. 780.), is 

 a well known shrub, foinid wild on dry light soils, and in rather hilly 

 situations, in the warmer and more temperate parts of Europe ; but 

 not in Sweden, or in Russia or Poland, north of Cracow and Casan. 

 It has been known as a nourishing food for cattle from a very early 

 period, and has been sown in some parts of England for that purpose 

 and for fuel. Dr. Anderson knows few plants that deserve the atten- 

 tion of the farmer more than the whin. Horses are peculiarly fond 

 of it ; so much so, that some persons think they may be made to per- 

 form hard work upon it, without any feeding of grain : but he thinks 

 it tends more to fatten a horse than to fit him for hard labour, and 

 that therefore some grain should be given with it where the work is 

 severe. Cattle, he says, eat it perfectly well when thoroughly bruised, 

 and grow as fat upon it as upon turnips ; but unless it be very well 

 bruised for them, they will not eat it freely, and the farmer will be 

 disappointed in his expectations. It has lately been found excellent 

 food for horses in the Highlands of Scotland. {High. Sac. Trans, vol. v.) 

 Cows fed upon it yield nearly as much milk as while upon grass, and 

 it is free from any bad taste. The best winter-made butter he ever 

 saw was obtained from the milk of a cow fed upon this plant. This 

 food should be made use of soon after being prepared. Two bushels, 

 with a proper allowance of hay, have been found to be sufficient for 

 a day for three horses performing the same labour as with corn. It 

 also seemed useful to horses labouring under broken wind and grease. 

 Poor hungry gravelly soils, which would not have let for five shillings 



an acre, have been rendered worth twenty shillings by sowing them with furze-seed, in places where fuel 

 has been scarce ; the furze being frequently used for heating ovens, burning lime and bricks, and also for 

 drying malt : but it is not worth cultivating in countries where fuel of any kind is cheap, or upon such 

 lands as will produce good grass, corn, or other crops employed as the food of animals. 



5630. The culture of the whin is thus given by the same author : A field of a good dry loamy land, 

 being well prepared, he sowed, along with a crop of barley, the seeds of the whin in the same way as clover 

 is usually sown, allowing at the rate of from fifteen to thirty pounds of seed to the acre. The seeds, if 

 harrowed in and rolled with the barley, quickly spring up, and advance under the shelter of the barley 

 during the summer, and keep alive during the winter. Next season, if the field has not a great tendency 

 to run to grass so as to choke them, they advance rapidly after midsummer, so as to produce a pretty full 

 crop before winter. This you may begin to cut with a scythe immediately after your clover fails, and 

 continue to cut it as wanted during the whole of the winter ; but it is supposed that, after the month of 

 February, the taste of this plant alters, as it is in general believed that after that time horses and cattle 

 are no longer fond of it He, however, observes, that never having had a sufficiency of whins to serve 

 longer than towards the middle of February or beginning of March, he cannot assert the fact from his 

 own experience. He has frequently seen horses beating the whins with their hoofs, so as to bruise the 

 prickles, and then eating them, even in the months of April and May ; and he says, that sheep which 

 have been used to this food certainly pick off the blossoms and the young pods at that season, and probably 

 the prickles also ; so that it is possible the opinion may only be a vulgar error. This is, he thinks, the 

 best way of rearing whins as a crop for a winter food for cattle or horses. But for sheep, who take to this 

 food very kindly when they have once been accustomed to it, less nicety is required ; for if the seeds be 

 simply sown broad-cast, very thin (about a pound of seed per acre) upon the poorest soils, after they come 

 up the sheep of themselves will crop the plants, and soon bring them into round close bushes, as this 

 animal nibbles off the prickles one by one very quickly, so as not to be hurt by them. Sheep, however, 

 who have not been used to this mode of browsing do not know how to proceed, and often will not 

 taste them j but a few that have been used to the food will, he observes, soon teach all the rest how to 

 use it. 



5631. Another very economical way of rearing whins, but which he has seen practised rather than 

 experienced himself, is this : Let a farm be enclosed by means of a ditch all round, with a bank thrown 

 up on one side, and if stones can be had, let the face of that bank be lined with the stones, from bottom 

 to near the top, this lining to slope backwards with an angle of about sixty or seventy degrees from the 

 horizon. Any kind of stones, even round ones gathered from the land, will answer the purpose very 

 well; upon the top of the bank sow whin-seeds pretty thick, and throw a few of them along the face of 

 the bank. Young plants will quickly appear. Let them grow for two years, and then cut them down 

 by means of a hedge-bill, sloping down by the face of the bank. This mode of cutting is very easy, 

 and as the seeds soon insinuate themselves among the crannies of the stones, the whole face of the bank 

 becomes a close hedge, whose shoots spring up with great luxuriance. If another ditch be made on the 

 other side of the bank, and if this be managed in the same way, and the hedge cut down only once every 

 second year (and in this way it affords very good food for beasts), the inside and outside being cut down 

 alternately, the fence will at all times continue good, as the hedge at the top will at all times be complete. 

 This mode of rearing whins is, he remarks, both convenient and economical. But where stones cannot 

 be obtained for making the facing, the bank very soon moulders down, and becomes unfit for the purposes 

 of a fence. Circumstances have prevented him from ascertaining what is the weight of the crop that may 

 be thus attained, but he thinks he may safely venture to say, that it is at least equal to that of a crop of 

 green clover; and if it be considered, that this affords a green succulent food during winter, on which 

 cattle can be fatted as well as on cut grass in summer, it will, he thinks, be admitted, that it must be 

 accounted even a more valuable crop than clover. After being cut, he also remarks, that it springs up the 

 following season with greater vigour than before, and in this situation acquires a degree of health and 

 succulence very different from what it is ever observed to possess in its natural state. He has seen shoots 

 of one season near four feet in length. The prickles too are so soft, and the stems so tender, that very little 

 bruising is necessary ; indeed horses, that have been accustomed to this food, would eat it without any 

 bruising at all ; but horned cattle, whose mouths seem to be more tender, always require it to be well bruised. 

 How long crops of this sort may continue to be annually cut over without wearing out, he cannot say, but 

 he believes a long while in favourable circumstances. One thing, however, it is necessarj' to attend to in 



