Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Bush-vetch

BUSH-VETCH, or the Vicia sepium, L. an indigenous plant, growing in woods, hedges, pastures, and meadows. Its leaves are doubled together; bunches shorter than the leaves; the stem upright, sometimes four feet high; the blossoms of a dirty purple, and appear in May and June. This plant shoots earlier in spring than any other eaten by cattle; vegetates late in the autumn, and continues green all winter.

Although the culture of the bush-vetch was strongly recommended by Dr. Anderson in 1777, yet from later experience, it appears that it is difficult to collect the seeds, as the pods burst, scatter them about, and being made the nest of an insect, scarcely a third part of them will vegetate. Dr. Withering, however, observes, that a spot of garden-ground, sown in drills with this vetch, was cut five times in the course of the second ear, and produced at the rate of 24 tons per acre of green food, which, when dry, weighed nearly 4 1/2 tons.—The Rev. Mr. Swayne also informs us, in the third volume of the papers of the Bath Society, that he selected part of a field in which the bush-vetch naturally abounded, sowed it with this plant, and it succeeded so well, that he cut it four times in the same year; the produce of the hay was 24 tons 11 1/4 cwt. per acre, which is upwards of one-third more than lucerne generally produces. But Mr. Swayne has since observed to Dr. Withering, that though the bush-vetch is very palatable to all kinds of cattle, its cultivation, on a large scale, would be attended with difficulty, as the seeds are generally devoured by a numerous species of insects.—It is farther remarkable, that ants are extremely partial to this vegetable.