GROWN FOR SEED PRODUCE. 183 



be preserved. The second or spring-sown portion occupies 

 the ground about a month or six weeks later, which fre- 

 quently renders it impracticable as regards time, or incon- 

 venient as regards the labour required, to take another 

 crop off the ground before the preparations are made for 

 the succeeding grain crop. If the land be in satisfactory 

 condition, it is always better that it should be occupied 

 than lying fallow at this season of the year; therefore, 

 some quick-growing plant, as mustard or buckwheat, may 

 generally be advantageously sown, and a considerable 

 amount of valuable keep for the sheep stock, and of good 

 manure for the next crop secured, at a very little outlay, 

 either for seed or for labour. 



When it is intended to grow vetches for their seed, 

 the tillage treatment should be somewhat different from 

 that recommended for forage purposes. For the latter 

 the land can hardly be in too high condition; we want 

 to force a luxuriant growth of herbaceous matter, which 

 is rarely accompanied by an equal power of seed de- 

 velopment, the vigour of the plant declining when it 

 has reached its full growth and commenced its period of 

 flowering. For seed purposes we care but little about 

 the bulk of the crop; our object is to secure a sturdy, 

 branching plant, capable of sustaining its vigour of growth 

 until its natural functions of flowering and maturation are 

 completed, when, in the ordinary course of nature, its life 

 ends and it withers away. We, therefore, in our prepara- 

 tions for the crop, should be more sparing in the quantity 

 of manure applied, and should give the preference to those 

 of the inorganic rather than of the organic class for in- 

 stance, to guano and superphosphate in preference to farm- 

 yard dung and should diminish the quantity of seed used, 

 and sow it at wider distances apart, in order that the plants 

 may have more room on the ground, and the sun and air pene- 

 trate more freely. Even with these precautionary arrange- 



