Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

instrument for this purpose than the common roller. Holes have been recommended to be made 9 inches in depth, and a few inches asunder, with the dibble, into which the grub, it is said, will fall, and they might then be destroyed by pouring an acid upon them. The ravages are generally committed in dry weather with an E. wind, and when rain falls they cease.

2507. It is surprising how a field will recover the effects of grubbing. One season a field of mine, of fine deep hazel loam, after two years' grass, was dreadfully grubbed, and after trying the usual remedies to get quit of the insects, without effect, a rainy night silenced them. Most of the field appeared bare after having exhibited a beautiful braird, but on the plants renewing their growth, they tillered out with great force, and almost covered the ground as thickly as desirable. At harvest the crop was a very strong one, the straw being difficult for women to cut with the common sickle; the spikes were very large and full; the stooks, when set without hood-sheaves, stood about 6 feet in height, and the yield was not less than 60 bushels to the acre. On good soil I should have no fear of potato oats tillering out after being severely grubbed, sufficiently to afford a good crop; but such a result should not be expected of common oats upon inferior soils.

2508. There are reasons for believing that, in some cases at least, the withering of the wheat crop in spring, which had been sown on lea in

autumn, was occasioned by this insect. Rolling

with Crosskill's clod-crusher has been tried, and found at least partially successful in destroying the grub, and relieving the crop.

2509. The spring treatment of the oat crop in Germany is thus described by Thäer:"Oats are annually sown more thickly than any other kind of grain, either because the bushel contains fewer grains, or because oats do not grow so bushy as other kinds of corn, excepting on very rich soils. One half more seed than would be considered as the proper quantity for any other kind of grain must be sown in this case; and on broken-up grass land, which has only had one ploughing, the quantity had better be doubled, because all the seeds do not come up.

2510. "To insure the success of a crop of oats, it is necessary that the seed should be plump, fresh, and uninjured by fermentation. Oats which have acquired an unpleasant taste or smell while in the sack or store-house, certainly come up from the ground like others, but they produce a weakly plant, which perishes at the flowering season. I accidentally obtained proofs of this during the period I was studying agriculture. There is no grain, besides wheat, in which this evil requires to be guarded against so much as in oats.

2511. "The usual period for sowing oats is in

April in broken-up pasture land, they are sown in the middle of March, if possible; but where the situation is warm, the sowing may be delayed as late as the commencement of June; and it is when thus sown that oats succeed best, provided that the weather is favourable: this is occasioned as much by the soil having received a better preparation, as it is by the destruction of the weeds being more complete.

2512. "Oats do not germinate so easily as barley, nor is the process of germination so uniform, excepting where it takes place under a very favourable temperature. The crop does not come up simultaneously, nor do the plants ripen equally. Many weeds which germinate with oats-as, for instance, the wild mustard and the wild radish-tend materially to weaken the crop, and should therefore be destroyed by harrowing.'

[ocr errors]

ON LUCERNE.

2513. "In Britain," says Mr Lawson, "a great deal has been said in favour of lucerne, as an early plant, for yielding fodder before the red clover; and its cultivation has often been attempted, and attended with various degrees of success. The climate of Scotland has been considered by some as too cold for its growth; but the numerous failures which have

taken place may be more justly attributed to an improper choice of soil than to any other cause. The soils which appear to be most congenial to it are those of a very light sandy or dry nature; as, for example, several places in the neighbourhood of Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, where it is found to thrive well, although exposed to the direct influence of the sea-breeze, and to be fit for cutting at least a fortnight earlier than common rye-grass and red clover. Provided, however, the subsoil be always dry, the plant penetrating to a considerable depth with its roots, and particularly if it be of a calcareous nature, it is not indispensable that the surface soil be very sandy, as lucerne, in such cases, is found to grow freely on medium black loams; but lands which have a damp subsoil, or are of a tenacious nature, and damp in winter, are totally unfit for growing it, even although they may be, in the general acceptation of the term, very good soils."+

2514. The mode of culture may have

Thäer's Principles of Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 438-9-Shaw and Johnson's translation.

+ Lawson's Agriculturist's Manual, p. 159.

some effect on the success of cultivation. Mr William Pepper, of Falcon Lodge, near Sutton Coldfield, in Warwickshire, cultivates lucerne, and he decidedly prefers the broadcast to the drill system; and he has kindly furnished me with these particulars. He says that "a light dry soil should be chosen in the neighbourhood of the farmstead, and the deeper it is the better, as lucerne has a long root, which I have known strike as deep as 6 feet. The ground should be quite free of weeds, and well covered with good foldyard manure, which should either be dug down 18 inches deep, with a double spit of the spade, or ploughed down with a double furrow, by one plough following another. The best time for sowing the seed is about the middle of March, when it should be sown broadcast at the rate of 20 lbs. per acre, at a cost of 1s. 8d. per lb. It may be harrowed in with barley, upon land that has carried turnips, as being then in the cleanest state; but it may be sown after grass or stubble, provided the land has been properly laboured and cleaned."

2515. I may relate here, once for all, Mr Pepper's entire culture of this plant. "Towards the latter end of October, or beginning of November," continues Mr Pepper, "the lucerne should be covered with light stable manure, to preserve it from the frosts during the winter; and towards the beginning of March, in the ensuing season, it should be harrowed with light grass-seed harrows, to remove the few remaining weeds, and rolled. After it has been mown in May for the first time, it would be advisable to scatter over it again a light dressing of manure, in order to encourage the growth of the second crop. When the ground is cleared in the end of the season, it will be necessary to apply harrows upon it of a heavier description than those employed in the season before, as early in the season as the crop will admit; and continue to harrow till the ground is free of all weeds, and almost like a fallow, as the lucerne roots will now have got so deep as not to be injured by harrowing; and when immediately covered with manure, it will be found free of weeds in spring.

2516. "This mode of cultivating this useful plant will produce 8 tons of forage per acre; but it should be borne in mind that, when so much is taken from the ground, much manure will require to be given in return. The broadcast plan is very much preferable to drilling. I have known many sow it in drills, and, after a few years, give it up, in consequence of the great trouble and expense incurred in hoeing and cleaning; but the broadcast system saves all that trouble.

2517. "I sowed my lucerne in 1830, and have continued mowing and manuring it every year since; and in some seasons I have got as much as 12 tons per acre. It is a hardy plant, and will endure cold if cultivated in dry soil; but it flourishes best in a hot summer, when I have seen it run to the height of 5 feet 5 inches, though its usual stature is about 4 feet; and when all the other grasses were burnt up, it has remained green and succulent. It is particularly calculated for horses, though pigs will greedily consume the refuse that comes from the stable, and thrive well upon it; but it is too strong in the stalk for cows, and by no means so good for them as tares. If cultivated upon proper soil, an acre will keep three strong carthorses for 6 months, from 1st May to October; and after the first year may be mowed twice or thrice, according to the seasons.”

2518. The lucerne belongs to the class and order Diadelphia Decandria of Linnæus; to the family Leguminosa of Jussieu ; and to the subclass iii., Perigynous Exogens; alliance 42, Rosales; order 209 Fabiacea; tribe 2, Lotea, and sub-tribe 3, Trifolia, of the natural system of Lindley. It is the Medicago sativa of botanists; roots sub-fusi

form, stem erect, flowers large and violet-coloured.

Its name is derived from that given by Dioscorides to Median grass.

2519. Lucerne is said to have been brought to Greece from Asia. The Romans were well

acquainted with its properties as a forage plant, particularly for horses. Hartlib endeavoured to introduce its culture into England in the time of the Commonwealth, but did not succeed. It is cultivated in many parts of Europe in the fields; but "it is very remarkable that this species of forage, to which so much importance was attached by the Romans, has altogether disappeared from Italy. We are assured by M. Chateauvieux, that not a single plant of it is now to be seen.'

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities-Art. Agricultura. New edition. This article, by Professor Ramsay of Glasgow, gives the most correct and satisfactory epitome of the agriculture of the Romans I have seen.

2520. As a successful instance of cultivating the lucerne in drills, in the neighbourhood of London, I may mention that a practical writer recommends it to be sown in good, dry, deep soil, well-manured, in drills at 6 feet asunder, and to cultivate the intervening ground with other crops, such as potatoes, savoys, cabbages, carrots, &c.; and the principle upon which he advocates the wide drill system is the abundance of air given to the plant above, and of room to the roots below the ground, whilst the intervening ground can be kept clean by the culture of other useful green crops; and he maintains there is no other mode of keeping the land permanently clean, and that lucerne will not thrive amongst weeds. He observes that "the quick progress of lucerne, where it has room, is remarkable. The first year, only 2 tons lbs., the second, 8 tons 17 lbs., the third, 32 tons, advancing every year to four times the quantity it produced the year preceding. Another remarkable circumstance is, that the same plants produced the third year almost four times the quantity that they did the second, though cut but once more. The second year they produced three cuttings, and the third year but four, yet the produce of the four cuttings was four times as much as of the three. So much more numerous, larger, and juicy were the stalks of these plants, when in vigour, than in poor, cold land, assisted by culture only; and hence some idea may be formed of its extraordinary luxuriance on rich, warm land, well cultivated, and also manured. The results were, £20, 16s. per acre per annum of clear profit, from lucerne planted in this manner for the first three years; but after this, when the leaves of the plants meet, will yield full crops, and then the profits will be much greater for the value of the lucerne crops alone will be £30

a-year and upwards, and this with less trouble, and much greater certainty, than any other tilled crops in common husbandry. The value of the "lucerne and the other crops," he admits, "will indeed be much lower remote from London, and other populous cities, and for fattening cattle than if raised for sale at market; yet they will still be very profitable, and much beyond the

common profits of arable land."* If a near approach to these results be obtained, the lucerne is worth the trial in the neighbourhood of the large towns in Scotland, upon dry rich ground,

and I must own the mode of culture seems fea

sible. This writer says that lucerne should only be cut when in the bloom, and that, in converting it into hay, it loses three-fourths of its weight.

2521. The variety of lucerne named the falcate podded lucerne, Medicago falcata, is said to be the kind cultivated in Switzerland, the flowers of which are usually pale yellow, which is the most common colour of the tribe, but occasionally violet and green. There are 81 species of lucerne described by botanists.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

2525. It is preferred to be cultivated in the broadcast style, and may be treated precisely in the same manner as that described above, by Mr Pepper, for lucerne. "A very judicious method," as mentioned by Mr Lawson, "which is practised in some parts of England, is to sow it with about half the quantity of barley, or other grain, usually sown for a full crop, which gives it the advantage of being shaded, and kept moist during the first summer, without the chance of the plants being weakened from the closeness of the corn crop. In cases where the barley or corn is drilled, the sainfoin should be drilled across the field-that is, the drills running at right angles to those of the corn crops." +

2526. The seed of sainfoin is large and light; so light that, in harrowing the ground too much, it is apt to be again brought to the surface. On this account it had better be sown with a drill machine; and in that case the crop should be in drills, instead of broadcast.

* The Improved Culture of Lucerne, p. 177-80. 1775.

2527. The plant comes to full maturity

+ Lawson's Agriculturist's Manual, p. 165

of growth in 3 years; and, though it will not bear to be cut so many times in the year as lucerne, it makes an excellent easily made hay, yielding from 1 to 2 tons per acre, and a pleasant aftermath for stock.

2528. It is possible to cultivate sainfoin as a one or more years' crop of grass, in rotation with corn crops, instead of red clover; but in that case it would be better to be accompanied with white clover and rye-grass; and, being a perennial, it would have the advantage of red clover of remaining longer than one year in the ground, should it be desired to retain the grass beyond that period.

2529. The sainfoin belongs to the class and order Diadelphia Decandria of Linnæus; to the family Leguminosa of the natural system of Jussieu; and to the sub-class iii. Perigynous Exogens; alliance 42, Rosales; order 209, Fabiacea; tribe 3, Vicia, and sub-tribe 3, Heydsarea of the natural system of Lindley. It is the Onobrychus satira, the cultivated sainfoin of botanists, roots sub-fusiform, stems erect, flowers in spikes or long foot-stalks, of a beautiful pink or flesh colour. Its generic name is derived from the Greek, signifying plants grateful to the ass; its ordinary name is evidently from the French, meaning consecrated hay-from its property of producing an excellent sort of hay. The name was doubtless derived from France along with the plant.

2530. The intelligent practical writer whom I quoted above, on the subject of the lucerne, also treats of the culture of sainfoin, and he is a decided advocate of the drill system. He recommends sainfoin to be cultivated solely to be made into hay, as being the most profitable mode of cultivating it, and to be sown in double rows of 12 inches apart and 30 inches between the double rows, or in single rows at 24 inches apart, and the plants 4 inches asunder in the row. This method admits of the land being thoroughly worked, cleaned, and manured whilst the crop is growing, and then the plants will meet in the rows. And he makes the sensible remark, that if we expect to reap a heavy crop three or four times in the season, we must lay our account to manure the soil well.

[ocr errors]

2531. The sainfoin yields by much the finest quality of hay when cut before the blossom comes out. This hay, so cut before blossoming," says Jethro Tull, "has kept a team of working store horses, round the year, fat without corn, and when tried with beans and oats, mixed with chaff, refused it for the hay. The same fatted some sheep in the winter in a pen, with only it and water; they throve faster than other sheep at * Tull's Husbandry, p. 174--5,-1762.

the same time fed with pease and oats. The hay was weighed to them, and the clear profit amounted to £4 per ton. They made no waste,

though the stalks were of extraordinary bigness;

they would break off short, being very brittle. This grew on rich land in Oxfordshire. The second sort of sainfoin hay is cut in the flower; and though much inferior to the virgin hay, it far exceeds any other kind, as yet commonly propagated in England; and, if "it be a full crop by good culture, may amount to above 3 tons on an acre. This is that sainfoin which is commonly made, and the larger it is the more nourishing for horses. I have known farmers, after full experience, go three miles to fetch the largest stalky sainfoin, when they could have bought the small, fine, leafy sort at home, for the same price, The next and last sort of sainby the ton. foin that is cut only for hay is the full-grown, the blossoms being gone or going off: this also is good hay, though it falls short, by many degrees, of the other two sorts. It makes a greater crop than either of them, because it grows to its full bulk, and shrinks little in drying." +

2532.-"The season for sainfoin hay," says the former writer, "lasts from the end of April, or beginning of May, to the first or second week of October, or between five and six months; in which time, there is no doubt that from good land, cultivated as above, 3 good cuttings will be obtained, amounting to 7 or 8 tons of prime hay per acre, or about 30 tons of green fodder.

2533." It is no small commendation of this plant that the occupier of any ordinary land may raise good sainfoin upon it; that will keep a dairy, or fatten beasts and sheep, even upon land that did not before produce tolerable pasture for them. This is of inestimable benefit to hill farmers, whose dry lands are of little profit to them, but, by the proper cultivation of sainfoin, may thus be made of almost equal value to the rich low lands in dry seasons, and in wet seasons superior to them." +

2534. These commendations may not suit our Scottish practice, in which sainfoin is unknown; but now that red clover has become so precarious a crop, and is at all events only an annual, it is but right to look about for substitutes which will answer for as long a period at least as to postpone the return of the red clover for a number of years, and allow the land, in the meantime, to be rendered again fit to receive it. But as to making sainfoin and such plants permanent retainers of the soil, Professor Low makes these just observations. "If ground is to be mown for successive years for forage in such soils as are suited to it, scarce a better crop can be cultivated than sainfoin, which is easily grown, hardy, and productive. But, with regard to this particular mode of cultivation, it cannot be at all recommended. It is not the most beneficial mode of raising crops for forage; for, independently of the smaller produce, the keeping of land under any one kind of crop, and manuring it upon the + Improved Culture of Sainfoin, p. 251.

[blocks in formation]

2537. Giant Sainfoin.-" The introduction of this variety of sainfoin," says Mr Joseph Hine, Newhaven, near Baldock, Herts, "was purely accidental: it was clearly a foreign species; but although various purchases of foreign seed have subsequently been made, in hopes of obtaining the same variety, they have hitherto proved unsuccessful. It was not until 1842 that my father, who was the then tenant of the farm I occupy, sufficiently overcame his sceptical notions in reference to its peculiar properties as a distinct species, as to induce him to give it a fair trial; then, however, he procured of the introducer four bushels of seed, which cost him 80s. per bushel. This was dibbled between the rows of wheat sown upon a pea stubble; and the seed being expensive, we endeavoured to drop one seed in a hole, making them from three to four inches apart, which carried it over nearly three acres. The stubble of the wheat crop was left upon the land during the winter, but beat down and raked off in the spring. The crop was good for a thin plant, and would have cut more than 30 cwt. of hay per acre; but my father, hoping to get two crops of seed, let it stand, which was injudicious, experience having proved that it is very reluctant of going to seed in a maiden crop; and the second crop, although it went to seed again, was too late to be successful. In 1844 the entire piece was sown for hay, and produced from five to six tons, and early in September it was mown again for seed, which produced about 20 bushels per acre; this was sown in 1845, upon a red loam with a chalk subsoil, after beans and pease, which had been well manured for the same, at the rate of 2, 2, and 3 bushels per acre, upon 244 acres of land, which has this season produced more than 50 tons of hay, the

thickest sown answering the best. In August it was mown again for seed, and subsequently produced a good eddish for feed. The species has now been tested in this and the adjoining parish for 15 years, and the price of the seed has varied during that period from 50s. to 80s. per bushel. It is quite clear that it will, like lucerne, produce three crops for hay or soiling in one season; and the food in either case is much more nutritious. I had 12 acres drilled last spring, 1846, upon pea stubble wheat, at 3 bushels per acre; the wheat was very fine, and partially down, but the plant of the sainfoin is good. I shall now introduce it in regular course, sowing about 12 acres in each season upon pea stubble wheat, to remain three years, and then to break up for wheat-by which method it will be perceived that only the barley crop is sacrificed in one round. In this way, if successful, I shall obtain 36 acres for hay each year, and 36 acres for seed, or second and third crop, as may appear advisable. This will furnish me with all the hay I require, leaving my clovers wholly for sheep feed; but whether this will prove the more excellent mode of turning this peculiar variety to the best account, experience alone can determine. I shall only add, that I have a very large portion of my crop of hay remaining, 1847, and a small quantity of the seed in an unthrashed state, with 36 acres in plant." +

ON THE LAMBING OF EWES.

2538. The lambing season of Leicester, and other heavy breeds of sheep, reared in the arable part of the country, commences about the 11th of March, and continues for about the space of 3 weeks.

2539. There is no labour connected with the duties of the shepherd which tests his attention and skill so severely as the lambing season; and a shepherd, whose unwearied attention and consummate skill become conspicuous at that critical period of the flock's existence, is an invaluable servant to a stock farmer-his services, in fact, are worth far more than the amount of wages he receives; for such a man will save the amount of his wages every year, when compared with the losses sustained by the neglect of an unskilful shepherd, and especially in a precarious season, when, by treating the ewes and the lambs in the most proper manner under the circumstances, the lives of many are preserved that would otherwise have been lost. make my meaning more plain, suppose a shepherd who, having attentively observed *Low's Elements of Practical Agriculture, 2d edition, p. 416. + Bell's Weekly Messenger, for February 1847.

To

« AnteriorContinua »