This admirable plant is not so well known as it should be. It
resembles a clover, and is used for green food for cattle, for which
it is peculiarly adapted both by its nutriciousness and its endurance
of repeated cuttings. Care must be taken to put it upon the right soil
and it will bear mowing four or five times a year, and will last for
ten years—with care five years more! The soil for it is a _deep_, a
very deep vegetable loam, which drains itself perfectly and yet
without becoming dry. It has a fusiform root, which, as the plant
grows older, extends downward from four to six feet. The subsoil is
regarded by Flemish farmers as of more importance than the surface
soil. A stiff, cold, clay, a wet and springy soil; a hard, cold, wet
subsoil of any sort, is unfavorable to it. It should therefore be
tried on warm, dry, and rich soils, than which none are better than
our sandy alluvions or bottom lands. During its first year it requires
some care, to keep down weeds, as it is easily smothered; but when
once established it rules the soil in defiance of anything. If the
ground is _very_ clean, it may be sown broadcast; but it is always
safer and often _necessary_ to drill it. Authors vary as to the
quantity of seed required per acre, Von Thaër says six to eight
pounds, while his French editor says from sixteen to eighteen. We
suppose that from ten to twelve pounds will be a fair amount.
When the plants are well established they will be improved by severe
harrowing every spring, a sharp harrow being used until the field
looks as if it were plowed.
Lucerne has been tried by a few cultivators in the West, but by more
in the East, with great success, and it has this peculiar excellence,
that, thanks to its very long roots, it withstands our severest
droughts; indeed our hottest and dryest summers are those which it
seems to delight in.