On Early Spring Feed. 



219 



remains of vegetation being- covered, deprived of air, and gather- 

 ing- moisture, begin to decompose. Instead of cross-ploughing, 

 it is again ploughed lengthways, and the old surface agam brought 

 up and harrowed. The weeds separate much more easily by this 

 process, and much time and labour is saved ; the same practice 

 is applied to bastard fallows with the same good effects. 



Rve has the decided advantage of being capable of resisting 

 any eonceicahle degree of frost, and when even the hardy wheat is 

 carried off by an ungenial season, it will escape injury, and even 

 thrive. At this time (Feb. 21, 1840) the writer has a plot growl- 

 ing for feed which would now afford more eating than almost 

 any mixture of artificial grasses in the middle of April, and that 

 on a thin light soil not worth more to rent than ''2bs. per acre. 

 Some of the rape has succeeded, even in this season of incessant 

 rain, which prevailed not only in the early stages of its growth, 

 but ever since it was sown. It can bear so much and constant 

 wet, worse even than frost. 



The expense of this crop will be somewhere as under. Say 

 per acre : — 



s. d. 



2^ bushels of rye at 4.^. 6t/ 113 



J peck of rape 0 10 J 



12 11 



1 1 should be remembered that this interferes with no operation 

 of husbandry, and prevents no crop, so that no rent of land or 

 other extras are to be reckoned — the ploughings would be nearly 

 the same if the rye were not sown. Nothing is better relished 

 by stock at the season when it is intended to be used ; a guide by 

 no means unsafe as to its nutritious qualities, and which is borne 

 out by the condition of the stock feeding on it. 



To recapitulate the advantages of its cultivation. 



I. Provision of excellent green food is made at a season of the 

 year when of all others it is most vranted. 



II. It is produced without sacrificing any portion of the usual 

 rotations pursued on a farm, and with little extra labour, nor does 

 it interfere with the management of any preceding or succeeding 

 crops. 



III. It will grow on any soil, but is especially calculated for 

 poor loose sand.''^ when every other green esculent is more or less 

 uncertain. 



IV. It will bear any degree of frost to which our climate is 



* Sowing rye, and feeding it off in the spring, has long been practised in 

 the neighbourhood of Saffron ^Yalden, and is very useful when the turnip 

 crop fails ; but it does not answer on our poor light soils. — Braybrooke. 



