The best way to find what Number of these Plants it is proper to have on a Perch of Ground, is to consider what Quantity of Hay one large Plant will produce (for, if cultivated, they will be all such). Without Culture these Plants never attain to a Fourth Part of the Bulk they do with it: Therefore very few have seen any one Plant at its full Bigness. One Plant, well cultivated, has in the same Ground made a greater Produce, than One thousand small ones uncultivated. But the Hay of a large single cultivated Plant will weigh more than half a Pound; and 112 Plants upon a square Perch, weighing but a Quarter of a Pound apiece one with another, amount to Two Tun to an Acre. If St. Foin be planted on some sorts of Land early in the Spring, and ho’d, it may bring a Crop the same Summer; for I once planted a few Seeds of it on sandy Ground in my Garden, at the End of _February_, which produced large Plants above Two Feet high, that went into Blossom the following _June_; tho’ there was a severe Frost in _March_, which kill’d abundance of Wheat, yet did not hurt these Plants: This shews that St. Foin is a quick Grower, unless it be planted on poor cold Ground, or for Want of Culture. And tho’ the poor Land, and ill Management generally allotted to it, cause it to yield but One mowing Crop a Year; yet it has yielded Two great ones on rich sandy Land, even when sown in the common ordinary matter. Thin St. Foin cannot be expected to cover all the Ground at first, any more than an Orchard of Apple-trees will, when first planted at Thirty Feet Distance from each other every Way; yet this is reckon’d a proper Distance to make a good and lasting Orchard. But if these should be planted at Three Feet Distance, as they stand in the Nursery, it would not be more unreasonable than the common Method of sowing St. Foin is; and there would be much the same Consequence in both, from covering all the Ground at first Planting; except that the St. Foin, being abundantly longer rooted downwards than Apple-trees are, has the greater Disadvantage, when by its Thickness ’tis prevented from growing to its full Bulk, and Length of Roots[175]. [175] Horizontal-rooted Plants suffer no greater Injury by their Pasture’s being over-stock’d than Cattle do; because their Pasture lying near the Surface of the Ground, they have it all amongst them: But St. Foin, and other long Tap-rooted Plants suffer yet more, because great Part of their over-stock’d Pasture is lost by them all, when they hinder one another from reaching down to it, by shortening one another’s Roots, which they do when they all become Dwarfs by reason of their Over-thickness. The Difference is only this: People are accustom’d to see Apple-trees planted at their due Distance: but few have seen St. Foin planted and cultivated at the Distance most proper to St. Foin; or ever consider’d about it, so much as to make the necessary Trials.