On the Giant Sainfoin. 



63 



by adopting this system to the extent required for hay, they avoid 

 the necessity of repeating the clover too often. 



Under any circumstances, I should not recommend more than 

 half the hay and fodder arising from the sainfoin to be consumed 

 in the yard ; believing as I do that it may be more profitably 

 applied by cutting it into chaff, and giving it to the sheep upon 

 land with the turnips. Here the intelligent farmer will be best 

 able to judge for himself in the selection of his stock. I keep 

 breeding ewes, and winter my lambhogs, selling them in the 

 spring, either fat or as stores, or keeping them during the early 

 part of the summer upon the clover, as circumstances may re- 

 quire ; but others, who wish to consume much cake and corn, 

 may prefer keeping sheep wholly for fatting purposes. In either 

 case, I am of opinion that the consuming value of the hay will 

 generally be obtained, and a greater return to the land realized, 

 than by consuming the whole in the yard. And in either case I 

 am of opinion that the return to the land from the hay thus con- 

 sumed thereupon is greater than would be effected by the value 

 of such hay consumed in corn, in a similar way, in any year, and 

 especially in a very dry summer, w T hen corn consumed upon the 

 land is sometimes injurious to the barley crop. When this prac- 

 tice is followed up year after year, much permanent improvement 

 will be seen upon the farm, especially when such a practice is 

 carried out merely as an auxiliary to a system heretofore working 

 tolerably well. 



In various letters respecting the Giant Sainfoin, I have met with 

 such observations as this : " I think the generality of the land in 

 this neighbourhood is too poor for it." Now I have known it 

 answer w T ell within a few miles of this place upon a chalky soil, 

 wdiere the land was only one remove from unprofitable cultivation. 

 The land, indeed, was highly cultivated, but not more so than 

 was profitable. If, in the remark above given, allusion was made 

 to the system I know to be practised upon some exceedingly poor 

 soils, of sowing the land with sainfoin, and when it is no longer 

 remunerative for mowing, using it for a sheep-walk, I must 

 confess, in that case. I do not think it is so well adapted, seeing, 

 as before stated, it will lose plant sooner than the common species, 

 unless it be treated as such species generally is, without regard to 

 taxing its more productive powers. For my own part, I see no 

 reason to doubt but that upon our weakest soils a crop of seed 

 may be produced proportionate with the stamina such soils mav 

 possess. I would, however, adopt every possible method that I 

 could reasonably expect to be remunerative, in order to increase 

 the fertilizing powers of the soil previous to planting the sainfoin ; 

 and, although I have recommended a wheat crop upon a pea 

 stubble to plant the crop of sainfoin upon,, having found such a 



