CULTIVATION FOR FEEDING PUEPOSES. 397 



that of wheat. From 30 to 50 bushels may be taken as 

 an average crop where the soil and seasons have been fairly 

 suitable to its growth ; and the growers are not generally 

 satisfied unless it obtain in the market a price about 

 double that of wheat. The straw produce is of little 

 value. It is of a dry, ligneous character, and very difficult 

 to decompose and make into manure. In most places it is 

 only used as a bottom for strawyards and feeding courts; 

 in some districts, however, it is sold at a low price to 

 persons who burn it in large quantities, lixiviate the 

 ashes, and thus obtain the potash it contains, for which 

 there is alwa} r s a ready sale. If burned in small heaps 

 on the field, the ashes, carefully distributed over its sur- 

 face, would go far towards restoring to the soil those 

 more valuable ingredients which the crop had abstracted 

 from it, and which, from the practice of selling both seed 

 and straw off the farm, has acquired for mustard the 

 character of an exhausting crop. 



When the crop is grown for fallowing and feeding pur- 

 poses, a far greater latitude of cultivation may be taken ; 

 indeed, this suitability to furnish a crop in almost any soil, 

 and at almost any time of the season, is one of the great 

 inducements which mustard offers to cultivation. At the 

 same time, we must recollect that mustard is subject to 

 the same laws that govern all vegetable productions; 

 that under favourable conditions its growth is accelerated 

 and its development increased to a greater extent than 

 when they are absent ; and that we must not expect to 

 obtain the same yield from a crop sown on an August 

 stubble as we may fairly calculate upon from one sown 

 after vetches or rye-grass, cut for soiling in May or June. 



When sown early in the season say May, June, or 

 July it is always desirable to drill in the seed at mode- 

 rate distances 12 to 15 inches for which purpose 

 4 peck to 1 peck of seed is quite sufficient. At this period 



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