106 Yarrow and Kidney Vetch. 



Yarrow {Achillea millefolium). — The value of this 

 plant for permanent pastures has been well known for 

 a long period, and therefore requires no detailed notice. 

 Arthur Young, from what he has written, evidently had 

 a high opinion of it. It will be observed that Mr. James 

 Hunter, of Chester, thinks \ lb. of it sufficient, and 

 perhaps this may be so in the case of permanent pasture, 

 as the plants spread gradually; but in the case of 

 pastures to lie for three or more years, and which are 

 afterwards to be broken up, I think that I lb. should be 

 used, as it is desirable to have a good supply of this 

 plant quickly established in the land — partly as food 

 for stock, and partly to insure a large root-growth in 

 the land, so as to furnish much vegetable matter when 

 the land is again brought into arable cultivation. For 

 such temporary pastures I have used 1 lb., and do not 

 find it too much. I have been particularly struck with 

 the value of yarrow in seasons of extreme drought, and, 

 in the case of the East Countridge field, I remember 

 observing to my steward that were the yarrow removed 

 the field would have had a totally different appearance, 

 as it was the yarrow alone that maintained the green 

 appearance of the field. 



In permanent pastures where the land happens to be 

 very favourable to the growth and spread of yarrow, 

 care should be taken to eat it close down early in the 

 spring, or it will occupy the land to an injurious extent, 

 and so, as I have found, injure a pasture. I was 

 particularly struck with this in the case of a pasture let 

 by me to a cow-feeder. The tenant had no sheep to eat 

 the yarrow down, and the yarrow was also allowed to 

 seed, and the result was that the pasture has been 

 distinctly injured — in fact, the yarrow, in some places, 

 spread so thickly over the ground as to strangle both 

 the grasses and clovers. Had the yarrow been kept 

 down by sheep, it seems impossible, judging by my 

 other pastures, that such a result could have occurred. 



Kidney Vetch {Anthyllis vulneraria). — This is a very 



