99 
the seed brittle. Milled seed can be obtained in commerce, and, if of good quality, should 
be preferred. Half the quantity of milled seed should be used per acre. 
It is the custom to sow sainfoin by itself. The preceding crop should leave the field 
loose, clean, and well manured. However sainfoin is not very particular, and if these 
conditions are not fulfilled, a good preparation of the land will be sufficient. Spring sowing. 
from the end of March till the beginning of May is best. Autumn sowing is rarely practised. 
It may be sown with a cereal crop. ‘The safest plan is to sow without a protective crop 
or with a crop to be cut green e. g. green oats or green rye. It may, however be sown in 
a spring or a winter cereal, with good results in a dry season. If the season is wet, the 
cereal is laid, and the young sainfoin plants are liable to be injured. A spring cereal is a 
better protective crop than a winter cereal. Spring wheat is specially appropriate. The 
seed should be covered by about an inch of soil. 
Sainfoin is rarely mixed with other fodder-plants, because it is then liable to be 
destroyed. Sainfoin and lucerne, when sown with red-clover, are said to prevent the out- 
break of dodder. When the soil is suitable, sainfoin can be added to clover - grass, to 
form mixtures for temporary or permanent leys. 
A fodder-plant closely allied to this is Spanish sainfoin (Onobrychis coronaria) which has Allied species, 
lately come into cultivation in Southern Europe. 
XVIII. Various-leaved fescue. 
Festuca heterophylla, Lam. (not Henke). 
Festuca rubra, subsp. heterophylla, Hackel. 
Fig. A. Entire plant in flower; the panicle spreading. 
, B. Panicle contracted, before flowering. 
1. A five-flowered spikelet, in flower, The stamens and stigmas are seen projecting from 
the lowest flower. 
9. A five-flowered spikelet, before flowering. 
3. False fruit, ventral surface. 
%. False fruit, dorsal surface. 
5, False fruit, side-view. 
6. Caryopsis, dorsal surface. 
7. Caryopsis, ventral surface. 
, 8. Caryopsis, side-view. 
9. Transverse section of a young shoot shewing the entire leaf-sheath and the folded blade. 
40. Transverse section of the blade of a culm leaf. 
,, 14. The ligule. 
Botanical description. Various-leaved fescue is distinguished from creeping fescue and tufted 
fescue by this peculiarity in its growth, viz. that the intravaginal shoots are much more numerous, 
than the extravaginal. The tuft is quite compact as none of the shoots have a creeping character. 
The culm is smooth, 2 to 4 ft. high, and has three nodes. The leaf-sheath is entire (fig. 9). 
The leaf-blades of the barren shoots, corresponding to those of the radical leaves, are very long, soft, 
permanently folded and bristle-like (setaceous). The transverse section is triangular; beneath the epidermis 
Sowing. 
; 
Explanation 
of plate. 
Botanical 
description. 
