940 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK x- 



It might be cultivated in light waste sandy soils by sowing its 

 seed in February, March, or April, in the proportion of 61b. per acre. 

 About October, or perhaps a little earlier in the following year, it may 

 be first mown, and then may continue to be cut at intervals until 

 Christmas, or even until the middle of March. It will go on growing 

 almost continuously. When used, a little salt should be added to it, 

 and it should be mixed with chopped straw or hay in the proportion 

 of one part to ten. 1 



Its effect on dairy cows ha been put to the test. In a dairy farm 

 near Birmingham of 100 cows which supplied that town with milk, the 

 land was poor, light, and dry, and such as, in the common mode of 

 culture, would be insufficient for producing fodder for the stock of the 

 occupier; he therefore sowed 100 acres of it with furze-seed. He 

 never let the plant rise into a shrub, but continually mowed it for his 

 dauy cows. When bruised in the mill it was mixed with a certain 

 portion of chaff, chopped hay or straw, wash and grains, but the furze 

 formed the principal portion of the diet, and increased the quantity and 

 improved the quality of the milk. Other remarks upon furze will be 

 found in Book the First, page 178. 



The results of an instructive experiment on gorse as a food for sheep 

 are given by Dr. J. Augustus Voelcker in the Journal of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society (3rd series, vol. x., 1899, p. 567). 2 



SPURREY (Spergula arvensis, L., nat. ord. Caryophyllacese). The 

 common or corn spurrey is an indigenous plant, nourishing in corn 

 fields and sandy situations, where it flowers from July to September. 

 Its culture has hitherto been but little, if at all, practised in this 

 country, though it is eaten with avidity by many animals, and particu- 

 larly by sheep. Spurrey continues green until a late period in autumn, 

 and often throughout the winter, on which account it has long been 



1 Working horses do their work well when fed with furze mixed with cut wheat straw, a 

 quartern of oats per day, and a handful of salt, from the first of November to the end of 

 March. Cows may likewise be maintained in good condition for the same period with a 

 well-heaped peck of it in the morning and another at night, thoroughly bruised and mixed 

 with an equal quantity of cut hay ; the flavour of the butter yielded by them is particularly 

 good. Farmers' Magazine, vol. x. p. 63. 



2 At the Society's Experimental Farm, at Woburn, Beds, there is on the hillside of one of 

 the fields a very poor and sandy piece of land, upon which no satisfactory crop could be got to 

 grow. On this, as an experiment, gorse was drilled in May, 1897, the variety tried being that 

 known as " French " gorse. No manure was used, and a barley crop was first put in, gorse 

 being drilled between alternate rows of the barley, and thus in rows about 18 in. apart. The 

 barley was once more a poor crop, but the gorse came up fairly regularly ; the plant was just 

 visible, about two or three inches high, through the winter, and it began to shoot out at the end of 

 April, 1898. Two horse-hoeings during the summer was the only cultivation required, and by 

 October the gorse was ready for cutting. The crop cut during the winter weighed 11 tons per 

 acre. It was decided to ascertain how the gorse would do for. sheep-feeding, and, chiefly, how 

 far it would replace roots, and so come in usefully in the event of a failure of the root crop or a 

 short supply of roots. There being no machine on the farm for preparing the gorse, it had, after 

 cutting, to be sent some distance off to a farm where there was a proper gorse-cutting machine. 

 Two lots of sheep, Hampshire and Oxford cross, about ten months old, fourteen in each pen, 

 were selected, and to both lots linseed cake and hay chaff were given. To one lot roots were 

 supplied, as much as the sheep would take, while to the other, gorse was fed ad libitum, and 

 the rest of the diet made up, if necessary, with roots. 



The results of the experiment showed very clearly that the replacement of roots by gorse 

 could only be made to a limited extent, and that, at most, 2 Ib. of gorse per head daily would 

 be consumed, taking the place of say 6 Ib. of roots. But, with this limitation, the gorse did 

 exceedingly well as a food, and exercised a pronounced benefit upon the sheep, alike as regards 

 their general health, their increase in live weight, and the excellence of the meat produced, so 

 that the use of gorse as an additional food for sheep is decidedly to be recommended. 



