Improvement of the Plants of the Farm. 
103 
Martin J. Sutton states that cow-grass used for soiling rarely 
gives more than one crop a year, with a bite sometimes in 
autumn. It comes into cutting three or four weeks after red 
clover, and remains in good condition two or three weeks. It 
stands several years. IVIr. Sutton recognises that the alleged 
peculiarities of stem and leaf are not persistent ; but he says the 
stem is generally solid and smooth, the land, however, making a 
great difference in regard to these peculiarities. Some samples 
of the seed are more like red clover-seed than others, and a pure 
sample will sometimes vegetate as though it were mixed. He 
finds if a " whimsical " plant in some respects, but, always true 
to its leading and valuable features, as a clover adapted for poorer 
land than red clover, and yielding later forage. 
Cow-grass, I have myself observed, tillers very freely when 
planted thinly, and a single root may carry under such circum- 
stances thirteen stems, which then assume the trailing habit of 
zigzag clover, the cow-grass of botanists (T. medium). As red 
clover is one of the most important plants in our agriculture, 
and one of the most profitable when it can be obtained, other 
reports by practical agriculturists may perhaps be read with 
interest. Mr. J. P. Franklin, Britwell, Oxon, finds that single- 
cut cow-grass yields more seed per acre than red clover, so that 
the cost of growing the seed is due to the sacrifice of the whole 
year's produce of the land, and to the expense of threshing a 
bulky crop. He has favoured me with the following remarks : — 
" I grew 5 cwt. per acre in '78 ; and in tliat year, which I think we shall 
never forget, '79, i cwt. ; both sold at Is. per lb. On an average you may 
expect 3 cwt. 
" I have grown it a second year for seed with success, and have one of the 
finest crops of White Tartar oats I ever saw on a very poor hill after it. 
" If mown for hay I believe it would stand a number of years, but would 
require cutting when coming into bloom, or the hay would be very coarse. 
It is first-rate green-meat for horses, or will take a lot of ewes or sheep often 
when the after-feed of the red clover is not ready. 
" It comes into flower about three weeks after red, and is a good preparation 
for wheat. I have planted it now about twenty-five years, and was one of 
the first here to save the seed." 
Mr. T, P. Hatt, Ipsden, Oxon, wrote on June 27, when the 
single-cut cow-grass was just budding for bloom, and the broad 
clover very nearly in full bloom. The former he says produces 
a very large crop on good land. He has had it so luxuriant in 
growth as to measure five feet long, but it then exhausts itself in 
one season, and does not answer for a second year. 
" On the thin chalk, where red clover is of very uncertain growth, it grows 
two years, and makes good hay. It is invaluable for green food for horses, but 
should not be cut for them till it begins to blow. Every farmer who iarms 
arable land and has to keep his horses in the yards or stables all the summer 
should plant about 1 acre to every 100 annually. I always sow the S. C. 
