ppl. a. Also 6–7 sowen. [Pa. pple. of SOW v.1]
1. Of seed, etc.: That has been sown, freq. as distinguished from that which has grown of itself.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 68. Garden or sowen Woad, brused, is good to be layde upon woundes.
1733. Tull, Horse-Hoeing Husb., xiv. 196 (Dublin ed.). Poor Slate Land, when it has borne sown St. Foin for six or seven Years,… produces Three Crops of Corn.
1795. Burke, Th. on Scarcity, Wks. VII. 408. Neither of the sown or natural grass was there … any remainder.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. VII. i. Fires, fevers, sown seeds, chemical mixtures.
1872. C. Innes, Lect. Scot. Legal Antiq., vi. 242. You will observe that made a late hay harvest compare with our sown grass.
b. With limiting term preceding.
See also new-sown s.v. NEW adv. 3 a.
1771. Encycl. Brit., I. 62/2. The early sown pease have the best chance to produce a crop of corn, and the late sown to produce a crop of straw.
1801. Farmer’s Mag., April, 232. Some of the late sown clover wheats have been attacked by the grub. Ibid., Aug., 354. The wheat and rye (Autumn sown crops) are good every where.
1890. Science-Gossip, XXVI. 167. Our native lark,… busy upon some newly sown grass seed.
2. Of land: Furnished with seed. Also absol.
1647. Hexham, I. Sowne fields, gezaeyde ackeren.
1670. Pettus, Fodinæ Reg., 87. His fenced Parks, Medows, and sowen Fields.
1801. Farmer’s Mag., Jan., 96. The later sown fields are only putting forth a braird. Ibid., April, 228. Some of the sown lands were then but half harrowed.
1859. FitzGerald, Omar, x. With me along some Strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown.
