HISTORY. 57 



when fed with it. In spring it is apt to purge cattle, which with 

 a little attention is conducive to their health. If it is given to 

 them in too great quantities, or moist with dew, they run the risk 

 of being hoven. These inconveniences are avoided by giving it 

 sparingly at first, and always keeping it twenty-four hours after 

 it is cut, during which time it undergoes an incipient fermenta- 

 tion, and the juice is partially evaporated: instead of being less 

 nutritive in this state, it is rather more so. 



An acre of good lucerne will keep four or five horses from 

 May to October, when cut just as the flower opens. If it should 

 get too forward, and there be more than the horses can consume, 

 it should be made into hay; but this is not the most profitable 

 way of using it, and the plant being very succulent, takes a long 

 time in drying. The rain also is very injurious to it in a half 

 dry state; for the stem is readily soaked with moisture, which 

 is slow in evaporating. The produce in hay, when well made, is 

 very considerable, being often double the weight of a good crop 

 of hay. 



Many authors recommend drilling the seed of lucerne in wide 

 rows, and hoeing the intervals after each cutting. This is the 

 best way with a small patch in a garden, and when only a little 

 is cut every day; but in a field of some extent, the lucerne, when 

 once well established and preserved free from weeds by hand 

 weeding the first year, will keep all weeds down afterwards, and 

 the heavy harrows with sharp tines, used immediately after mow- 

 ing, will pull up all the grass which may spring up. No farmer 

 ought to neglect having a few acres in lucerne on his best land. 



Note carefully that Rham says, "If the ground is 

 trenched so much the better, and if the surface is 

 covered with some inferior earth from the subsoil it 

 will be no detriment to the crop. ' ' The fact is that 

 earth from the subsoil often, in fact usually, has in 

 it much more lime than surface soil, so that bringing 

 it up is sometimes equivalent to a fairly good liming. 



It is a little difficult to explain the general neglect 

 of alfalfa in England, since there are many soils 

 there admirably suited to it and almost any of the 

 well-drained English soils would now grow it well if 

 they were well limed and enriched with even bare 



