DISTRICTS AND CLASS OF SOILS SUITABLE. 157 



The principal districts of the sainfoin cultivation are 

 in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Gloucestershire, 

 upon the soils of the chalk and oolite formations, where it 

 forms a regular feature in the husbandry of those sheep- 

 farming counties. The usual practice upon the best 

 managed farms is to sow down the sainfoin with the barley 

 crop after turnips, by which an opportunity is afforded in 

 the regular rotation of thoroughly cleaning the land, and 

 also of giving it, according to the way in which the root 

 crop is disposed of, any amount of manurial matter that 

 may be desired. This of course must be determined mainly 

 by the condition and the character of the soil, As a rul,e 

 it is generally more advisable, on thin and light soils, to 

 apply manures in small quantities and at short intervals, 

 than larger quantities at longer intervals ; and as the land 

 intended for sainfoin is generally of this class, a forced 

 condition at sowing time is not so important or so produc- 

 tive to the farmer, as that the land should be thoroughly 

 clean and in fair condition at starting, and should be kept 

 so by the occasional addition of fertilizing applications 

 during the continuance of its growth. 



The annual yield of the crop mainly depends upon 

 the condition in which it is sustained. If mown, as 

 it too commonly is every year, and the second growtli 

 merely fed off without any compensating manure being 

 applied to it, the cultivated plants gradually become 

 weaker, and the indigenous plants rapidly become 

 more numerous, until they gradually displace the 

 others, and the land becomes a mere mass of weeds. 

 If, however, it be kept regularly pastured down, or even 

 if it be mown for hay and fed off afterwards with 

 cake or corn, or an equivalent in manure say 10 or 12 

 tons of good farm dung per acre be added at any con- 

 venient time during the winter, the condition of the land 

 will be kept up, the plants will continue their usual 



