34 
On WJiite Mustard. 
white mustard following these, either to be fed off by sheep, or 
ploughed in as a green manure, may answer the purpose of either 
very well. It is said also to be an antidote to wireworm. 
It is, moreover, a very useful crop to grow upon a heavy land 
fallow (unfit for turnips), sown about midsummer, after the land 
has received its due culture, and eaten off by sheep in August or 
September, previous to laying up the land for winter. 
In ploughing the crop in for a green manure, it should be taken 
before exhausting the land by flowering; and it is highly desirable 
that all the top ends of the plant be well turned under the furrow, 
which can only be accomplished by means of a chain, one end 
being fastened to the " hake" of the plough and the other to the 
top of the coulter ; a wooden clog being in the centre of the chain 
to keep it down, and dragged along the bottom of the furrow, by 
the motion of the plough, just before the succeeding furrow falls 
upon it. In this way I have seen mustard as high as the horses' 
noses are off the ground effectually turned in. 
Gazeley, near Newmarket, 
February 28th, 1846. 
Note on White Mustard. 
Mustard is certainly not in general a dangerous food for sheep ; hut as 
one instance of serious injury has occurred from its use in my own 
neighbourhood, it is right that the circumstances of that injury should 
be known, in order to prevent the recurrence of a similar loss. They 
are stated as follows, in a letter from Mr. Williams, of Buckland : — 
(Ph. Pusey.) 
" I am sorry to say I have had a loss with my sheep from eat- 
ing mustard ; but I consider it purely accidental. My son had sown 
about 3 acres : in six weeks it was fit for the sheep ; we did not begin 
it, however, until the end of about 9 weeks. For the first 4 days the 
sheep ate it well ; and wishing to consume it as quick as we could, to 
plough the land for wheat, my shepherd, seeing the sheep do well, ven- 
tured to give them a double quantity : the consequence was, the whole 
flock of 205 ewes were all of them in a most alarming state when found 
in the morning, 5 of which were dead, and most of the others much 
swollen ; only the 5, however, died ; and J consider it was entirely by 
giving them so much. We, after a few days, ventured the same sheep 
upon the rest; and finally, they finished it without any failure." 
