These are pea-flowered plants, with ternate leaves, and spikes of flowers drooping to one side: it is named from mel, honey, in allusion to its flavour, and the genus Lotus, by which we may understand it to be a sweet-scented lotus-like plant. We have two native species, distinguished thus:—
Melilotus officinalis, an annual, with yellow flowers.
M. leucantha, a biennial, with white flowers.
Of these we may conclude that the flavour, which is like that of the Anthoxanthum odoratum—sweet vernal grass—is too strong and bitter to allow of its being recommended for culture alone; but we are inclined to think that, if grown in small quantity with seeds, or if a separate patch be cut and arranged sandwich-wise in the seed-rick, the melilots would give that sweet flavour which seems to be the principal cause of the superior qualities and sweetness of natural meadow as compared with artificial grasses.
Seeds have been forwarded to us of what is named “Cabool Clover,” and another packet labelled “Bokhara Clover,” both of which appear to belong to the M. leucantha, though certainly of a larger form than our native species, and probably consisting of the M. leucantha major. This latter must be cut young if used as recommended, as it soon gets woody. A correspondent of the Royal Agricultural Society has recently recommended the full-grown plant for paper-making; and, if of value for this purpose, we can affirm from experience that a large yield can be got from soils of a very inferior quality, as our experiments on its growth have been made on a very stiff and poor bed of forest marble clay.
VI. Onobrychis—Sainfoin.
Sainfoin, or “holy fodder” of the French, is distinguished by its brilliant spike of pink variegated flowers, which droop to one side, its winged leaves of from six to eight pairs of oval leaflets, which are entire, that is, undivided at the margin, and its short, rounded, wrinkled, and spinose seed-vessels. The forms in cultivation are—
Onobrychis sativa—Common Sainfoin. Onobrychis sativa, var. bifera—Giant Sainfoin. Of these the former has the preference in England, whilst the latter is much grown in France. Our experiments with both lead us to conclude, that although the former flowers but once and the latter twice in the season, the O. sativa still gives the greatest amount of food, as the second crop of the giant sort is usually poor and straggling, with but little leaf; while the common sort sends up a thick growth of leaves after being cut.
The O. sativa bifera is but a variety of the O. sativa, as by long continuance of growth from the same seed in this country it reverts to the common form; and hence the giant sort should be frequently renewed from an imported stock. Sainfoin has been much cultivated on calcareous soils, more especially on the free-stones of the oolite rocks, and on the chalk, off which formations it is scarcely known, except on some calcareous sands in the eastern counties. In the limestone and chalk districts sainfoin is grown as a permanent crop, and formerly lasted six or eight years. In the eastern counties the little there grown is by way of a shifting crop, in the same place and manner as common clover. The permanency of sainfoin is yearly becoming greatly diminished from the circumstance that its seed is so much mixed with that of the burnet, Poterium sanguisorba, var. muricata. To such an extent does this evil occur, that we have examined samples of sainfoin seed in which there were at the rate of from twenty to forty thousand of burnet seed-pods per bushel; and when we consider that these pods have for the most part two ripened seeds, and those of a plant growing so much more rapidly than the sainfoin, we can form some notion how the desired crop is soon smothered and overpowered by the burnet, which at best is but a rank weed, of no agricultural value; for whatever of good there may be in our ordinary native salad burnet, which is a smaller and more succulent plant, this sticky foreign interloper cannot possibly have any claim to our regard.
The reason why it has gone on so long unchallenged is that the burnet-seed, though of an entirely different shape from the sainfoin, is somewhat of the same colour; and then in their growth both plants have winged leaves, and the difference between the entire leaflets of the sainfoin and the toothed leaflets of the burnet did not at first strike the farmer; now, however, the difference is better understood, and farmers begin to require that the burnet-seed shall be sifted from the sainfoin. This of course will demand the payment of a better price for the better sample, as in the process of sifting many of the smaller sainfoin seeds go through with the burnet; but this will be well worth a better price, as the larger seeds will undoubtedly tend to produce a better crop.