CARTER AND CO.’S GARDENER’S VADE-MECUM FOR 1862. 
early forage crops. Carting of hay, and of various otlier materials, lime, drain tiles, wood materials, which, as horses are 
at leisure, may be more easily done now tlian at any other time of the year. Any work of the nature of bare fallow is carried 
on during J uly. 
Hand-labour is almost exclusively confined to huy-making and various hoeings, with the earliest of the harvest and Flax 
pulling, Bean and Pea cutting, and perhaps Rye cutting, if any is left to seed. 
Rape Culture. — This is sown to some extent on most 
kinds of soil, but it is especially the green crops of our fen 
districts, yielding a thick juicy succulent stem and leaf, 
much more nourishing than any turnip that can be grown 
in such circumstances. 4 lbs. or thereabouts are sown per 
acre, in rows 15 inches apart, on the flat. It receives a very 
imperfect hand-hoeing and singling, and except horse- 
hoeing, very little other cultivation during its growth ; and 
it yields a very large bulk of succulent food of much greater 
value for sheep feeding per acre than the Turnip or the 
Mangold Wurzel, growing sometimes so high that even the 
tall upstanding Lincoln sheep is hidden in it. A good crop 
will keep 16 to 20 sheep from October till February per 
acre. 
“Stolen” Crops. — Rape may bo considered one of 
them ; but the term is generally applied to those crops, as 
Rye, Vetches, Trifolium inoarnatum, &c., which are some- 
times taken on a corn stubble, and fed or cut before a late 
turnip sowing. It is proposed to refer to them here, not- 
withstanding that it is generally later in the year that they 
are sown. 
( 1 ) Rye is sown as a stolen crop on any corn stubble, 
which should be ploughed under and harrowed, 
and if possible manured. Three bushels are sown 
broadcast — a thick plant is wanted — and being sown early 
in October it covers the ground before winter, and produces 
our earliest spring fodder. Mr. Taunton some years ago 
advocated a variety called St. Jolin’s Day Rye from its 
being capable of being sown so early as St. Jolm’s Day, 
and forming a bulky growth above the ground without 
starting the ears before winter. It is cut in March and 
April for forage, and carried to the stalls, or it is folded over 
with sheep. It is adapted to light soils, and will yield on 
our poorest soils a heavier crop of grain than any other of 
our cereal grasses would produce. The land is cleared in 
ample time in May for sufficiently thorough cultivation, to 
ensure an early enough seed-time for common turnips, or 
even for summer vetches. 
(2) Vetches are sown in October, drilled in by the Suffolk 
drill, in rows 6 inches apart, 3 or 4 bushels per acre. If 
the Winter Vetch is sown, the seed-time is as early as pos- 
sible after harvest on any corn stubble, properly manured 
and ploughed, and the yield in April and May, cut while 
in blossom, is capital food for all kinds of stock. It is, 
when cut young, extremely succulent — too much so for use 
in the stable, unless allowed partly to wither before being 
given to horses. It is best grown on the stiffer class of 
soils. On light soils, although it yields well even there, yet 
its fibrous root so loosens the land as to injure it for the 
succeeding wheat crop. The Winter Vetch is mown off 
the land in time enough for a later-sown crop of Turnips, 
which should be folded on the land, and then followed by 
barley. Spring-sown Vetches are sown just in the same 
way, 3 busnels or theieabouts per acre; only they cannot 
bo called a stolen crop, being taken as the main produce of 
the season. They may be seeded, and will yield from 3 to 
4 quarters of seed per acre. Mr. Shirreff, of Haddington, 
introduced a white-flowering Vetch of great luxuriance of 
growth, which is superior as a forage crop to the common 
kinds. It may be mentioned here that the use of the water 
drill is especially adapted to secure a crop of Turnips after 
stolen crops. Such crops leave the ground of course hard 
and dry, compared with the land which has been fallowed 
during Autumn and Spring ; and the drought of the later 
season, when alone Turnips can be sown after them, added 
to the natural dryness of the soil, often spoils the prospect 
of a turnip crop altogether. If properly ploughed up, 
however, and manured, and reduced by cultivator, clod- 
crusher, and harrow to a certain degree of tilth, the water 
drill will moisten the land enough to ensure the germina- 
tion of the seed, and a crop is generally obtained. 
(3) Trifolium incarnatum. — This, a hardy coarse crimson 
flowered clover, may be sown as early as possible after the 
Wheat or Oats is off. 24 lbs. of seea are sown broadcast 
over the stubble, and if rain has fallen, the harrow will 
scrape earth enough up to cover the seed, which seems to 
find in the hard land a more congenial seed-bed than when 
pains have been taken to manure and cultivate the soil. 
It sprouts and covers the ground before Winter, and forms 
a bulky coarse produce in April and May next year, which 
must bo consumed during the time it is in flower, or it will 
become so hard and woody that it is indigestible and dis- 
tasteful. It is only during a short time, about a fortnight, 
that it is fit for food ; and a small portion only on any 
farm is all that is necessary. But Messrs. Vilinorin, 
of Paris, have introduced two other sorts of this Trifolium, 
one a white-flowered variety, and both of them much later 
than the common T. incarnatum, aud thus three times the 
extent of land may be usefully devoted l« tliis crop. Sown 
the same day, they will come to maturity at intervals of a 
fortnight from one another ; and when the common sort is 
just going out of bloom, and the last of it therefore is being 
cut, the second sort will be in full succulence and at the 
height of its value, while the third, ready to succeed it, is 
hardly yet in bloom. All these sorts, like Rye and Vetches, 
may be followed by late-sown Turnips ; they make very 
coarse hay, and are best consumed as forage, and so long 
as it is succulent, sheep and all other stock will eat it 
greedily : 12 to 20 tons of green food per acre may thus 
easily be grown. If consumed by sheep, they should be 
folded on the field. The plough follows as soon as a 
furrow from end to end of the field is possible, and its con- 
sumption leaves such u dressing of dung upon the land that 
2 or 3 cwt. of superphospliate, sown in the water drill with 
the Turnip seed, will secure an ample crop. 
Haymaking. — If every blade of grass could be ex- 
posed as soon as cut to a temperature somewhat under that 
of boiling water until perfectly dry, aud then packed awav 
under a water-proof roof, the hay would be as good as such 
grass could yield ; the whole nutriment which the grass 
contained would be present in the hay, undiminished by 
washing or by fermentation. For the best hay there is 
needed the best grass, cut when containing the greatest 
quantity of nutriment, and dried rapidly and perfectly. 
To tliis end the grass fields of Herts, Middlesex, and Surrey, 
where the best hay is made, aro cut soon after they are in 
flower and perpetually tedded and shaken out, no two 
blades being allowed to stick together while drying. The 
hay, with certainly a little loss of colour, is thus simply 
dry green grass. It heats hardly at all when put together, 
and so far as the food is concerned that was in the field, it 
is all and undiininished in the rick. Just in proportion as 
it resembles this, is hay-making good. Mr. Baldwin’s, of 
Glasnevin, essay on this subject was published in the 
Spring by the Royal Dublin Society, and maybe consulted 
with advantage. It recommends Italian Rye-grass to be 
cut on the appearance of the flower, as a second and tliird 
cutting is obtained if not allowed to seed. Common Rye- 
grass should be allowed to form its bloom. Clover should 
be cut when in full bloom ; mixed meadows when the 
earliest- grasses, as Anthoxanthum, have formed their seed, 
the bulk of the grasses being then in bloom. Grass is cut 
cheaper and better by Che horse-drawn mowing machine 
tlian by the scythe. There is great loss of the nutritive 
part of grasses by long exposure in field. As soon as it is 
made, hay should be carried to the rick : leaving it out in 
wind-cocks for weeks before being finally carried home, 
results in the formation of a lot of comparatively worthless 
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