a vetch crop of the early season to stand over for 
a second cutting may be to forego the far higher 
advantage of raising a turnip crop on the ground 
which it occupies. A crop or patch of vetches 
which stands till its seeds are ripened should be 
cut and harvested in the same manner as pease. 
“In making tares into hay,” says Dr. Dickson, 
“more attention is necessary than in those of 
most of the artificial grasses, as wet is more in- 
jurious to them, and they require more sun and 
air; but in other respects they demand the same 
cautious management in order to preserve the 
foliage from being lost. The time for cutting 
for this purpose is when the blossoms have de- 
clined, and they begin to fall flat. When well 
made, the hay is of the most nutritious quality. 
In the application of tare crops, there can be 
little hesitation in pronouncing that of soiling 
them with horses or other stock on the farm, as 
the most advantageous and beneficial method. 
The vast advantage of this mode is rendered par- 
ticularly evident by the great loss in converting 
them into hay. In the practice of soiling much 
loss may be sustained by cutting the tares at too 
early a period. An intelligent agricultor is of 
| opinion that the farmer’s stock should be wholly 
supported on them from the time they begin to 
blow till the blossoms begin to fall off, and the 
formation of pods takes place. On account of 
the risk from wet, he recommends that all the 
stock ofa farm should be soiled on them green, 
as it will have the good effect of taking it off the 
grass land long enough to allow of its being 
mown for hay; and by this means the meadow 
hay be much increased in quantity, and there 
will not be so much occasion for pasture, the 
tares abundantly supplying its place. Besides, 
at the time the cattle return from green tares, 
the grass land, in the mean time having been 
mown, may be ready to receive them. It is 
further observed that, as it would be wasteful in 
the extreme to turn live stock into a field of 
tares, as their treading and lying down would do 
great mischief to the crop, even by feeding it in 
small patches hurdled off, the most advisable 
method would be to mow the tares of the first half 
acre, and to carry the produce into the stables, 
cow-houses, and fold-yards, or on to poor land to 
be consumed by stock, then to hurdle the grow- 
ing tares from such cleared ground, into which 
put the stock and feed them all with the tares, 
given to them in racks, removing the hurdles 
and the racks forward daily to the edge of the 
growing tares, which will manure the land uni- 
formly, and deposit all the urine in the soil. In 
the Gloucester Report another good method is 
recommended, ‘which is to feed them through 
rack hurdles, which are made the same as the 
common five-railed ones, only leaving the middle 
rail out, and nailing upright pieces across, at 
proper distances, to admit the sheep to put their 
VETCH. 
587 
sufficient number of these hurdles, allowing one 
to five sheep, are set close to it: at noon the 
shepherd mows another swath and throws it to 
the hurdles, and the same at night; next morn- 
ing, a swath being first mown, the hurdles are 
again set: thus moving them once in the twenty- 
four hours, by this trifling additional trouble the 
vetches are eaten clean off, and the land equally 
benefited.’ In Gloucestershire and Worcester- 
shire, they sow tares as pasturage for horses, and 
eat them off early enough to allow of turnips be- 
ing sown the same season. In wet seasons, where 
the tare crops are large, the stems are, however, 
apt to become rotten upon the ground; in this 
condition such food often proves prejudicial to 
horses; in such cases it will therefore be impru- 
dent to cut them any longer for the purpose of 
soiling. In Sussex tares are of such infinite im- 
portance that not one-tenth of the stock could 
be maintained without them: horses, cows, sheep, 
hogs, all feed upon them. The last sort of ani- 
mals are soiled upon them without any other 
food. This plant maintains more stock than any 
other plant whatsoever. Upon one acre Mr. Da- 
vies can maintain four horses in much better 
condition than upon five acres of grass; upon 
eight acres he has kept twelve horses and five 
cows for three months without any other food. 
No artificial food whatever is equal to this excel- 
lent plant. They find this crop to be a hearty 
and most nourishing food for all sorts of cattle. 
Cows give more butter when fed with this plant 
than with any other food whatsoever. By one 
crop of vetches succeeding another, Mr. Hal- 
stead, in the same district, insures a crop the 
whole summer of the best food that can be given 
to cattle; after this he sows turnips, and then 
wheat. Where large stocks of sheep are kept, 
tares are exceedingly useful; for they come in 
at a time when rye and turnip crops are eaten 
off, and before the clovers and other grasses are 
in sufficient forwardness for being turned upon, 
and afford a seasonable supply of food for ewes 
and lambs. It is recommended to wait till the 
tares have gained a sufficient increase of stem 
before the sheep are turned in, and then to di- 
vide the ground by hurdles, in the same manner 
as is practised above. By this means there will 
be little waste, and the ground be enriched in a 
much higher degree than if the stock had been 
suffered to ramble over the whole crop. As from 
the great closeness and shade which is preduced 
in these crops the land becomes much improved 
and rendered more clean and mellow, such plants 
should constantly be cultivated wherever the 
soils and situations will admit, especially if the 
keeping of much live stock be the object. In 
cold exposed situations, where vegetation is late 
in the spring months, they are not so proper: 
it may sometimes under such circumstances be 
more advisable to raise clover crops, as it will 
heads through. A swath of vetches being mown | not be so much later as to render it much less 
in the direction you wish to plough the land, a| valuable, and at the same time be more certain. 
