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 gocd lucerne will keep four or five horses from 
May to Octcher, 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 
