354 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



Sain Foin was the kind of hay with which they here 

 mostly fed their horses, who eat it very willingly. It was 

 given to them either whole with all the grasses and plants 

 which were among it, or cut up very small, like fine 

 chopped straw, and afterwards laid in the crib for the 

 horses. 



The 4th July, 1748. 



Tistels Tltrotande. The eradication of Thistles. 



Here we found that the farmers were more thoughtful 

 than in Sweden ; for in the last named place they allow 

 the thistles, Tistlarna, to stand and ripen, when the 

 wind afterwards carries about their fine seed on to all the 

 near and distant fields, orchards, etc. Yes, who has not 

 sometimes found them so thoughtless that when they 

 cut rye or barley they cut away the crop round about the 

 thistle but leave it standing,* as though they were afraid 

 that it would otherwise have no chance of sufficiently 

 propagating itself! Here, in England, the farmers had 

 entirely different ways of thinking and acting. We saw 

 large tracts of ploughed fields, meadows or pastures where 

 Onopordum, 653 [O. Acanthium, the Cotton Thistle"] and 

 other kinds of thistle which grew thereon had been mown 

 with the scythe before they had well begun to expand 

 their flowers, and left to lie and wither on the plain. 



Borrvete. Buckwheat was sown in one and another 

 of the enclosed arable fields. 



The 5th July, 1748. 

 Godning. Manuring. 



In one place and another the manure, godselen, was 

 carried out and laid in great heaps on the ploughed fields, 

 about 2 or 3 fathoms between two heaps. The manure 

 consisted mostly of pieces of straw and such like stuff as 



* " And lingering thistles the rough fields deformed." Georgia. Bk. I, 

 1. 15 r, orig. — 173, Tr. J. Mason, 1801. [J. L.] 



