fresh, as, if kept, it would turn sour sooner than bread made of barley, rye, or wheaten flour. Its blossom is considered to afford the best food for bees. If cut green, it yields good forage, and if ploughed in when in flower, it is thought one of the best vegetable manures in use. It is also said to be used in distillation; but this is not generally admitted to be the case.

464. Rape (colza, colsat, or cole seed; not the Brássica Nàpus of Linnæus, but the B. campestris of Decandolle) is considered an important article of Flemish agriculture. It is sometimes sown broad-cast, but the general and improved method is by transplanting, which they allege, and apparently with great justice, to have many advantages: one is, that the seed-bed occupies but a small space, whilst the land which is to carry the general crop is bearing corn. By having the plants growing, they have time to harvest their corn, to plough and manure the stubble intended for the rape, which they put in with the dibble or the plough, from the latter end of September to the second week of November, without apprehending any miscarriage.

465. The seed-bed is sown in August, and even to the middle of September. In October, or sooner, the stubble is ploughed over, manured, and ploughed again. The plants are dibbled in the seams of the ploughing (each furrow slice being twelve inches broad), and are set out at twelve inches' distance in the rows. Instead of dibbling upon the second ploughing, in many cases they lay the plants at the proper distances across the furrow, and as the plough goes forward, the roots are covered, and a woman follows to set them a little up, and to give them a firmness in the ground where necessary. Immediately after the frost, and again in the month of April, the intervals are weeded and hand-hoed, and the earth drawn up to the plants, which is the last operation till the harvest. It is pulled rather green, but ripens in the stack; and is threshed without any particular management: but the application of the haulm, or straw, is a matter of new and profitable discovery; it is burned for ashes, as manure, which are found to be so highly valuable beyond all other sorts which have been tried, that they bear a price as three to one above the other kinds, and it is considered that, upon clover, a dressing of one third less of these is amply sufficient.

466. The seed is sold for crushing; or, as is frequently the case, it is crushed by the farmer himself; an oil mill being a very common appendage to a farmery.

467. The oilette, or poppy (Papaver somniferum), is cultivated in some parts, and yields a very fine oil; in many instances, of so good a quality as to be used for salad oil. The seed requires a rich and well manured soil. The crop is generally taken after rape, for which the ground has been plentifully manured; and for the oilettes it receives a dressing not less abundant. The seed is sown at the rate of one gallon to the English acre, and is lightly covered by shovelling the furrows. The average produce is about thirty Winchester bushels to the English acre. The seed is not so productive as rape, in point of quantity, but exceeds it in price, both as grain and as oil, by at least one sixth. The measure of oil produced from rape, is as one to four of the seed; that produced from the seed of the oilettes, is as one to five.

468. Poppy seed is sown both in spring and autumn, but the latter is considered the best season; great attention is given to the pulverisation of the soil, by frequently harrowing, and (if the weather and state of the soil permit) sufficient rolling to reduce all the clods.

57

469. The harvesting of the poppy is performed in a particular manner, and requires a great number of hands. The labourers work in a row, and sheets are laid along the line of the standing crop, upon which, bending the plants gently forward, they shake out the seed. When it ceases to fall from the capsules, that row of the plants is pulled up, and placed upright in small sheaves, in the same, or an adjoining field, in order to ripen such as refused to yield their seed at the first operation. The sheets are then again drawn forward to the standing crop, and the same process is repeated, till all the plants are shaken, pulled up, and removed. In two or three days, if the weather has been very fine, the sheets are placed before the rows of the sheaves, which are shaken upon them, as the plants were before; if any seed remains, it is extracted in the barn by the flail: and, if the weather is unpromising, the plants are not left in the field after the first operation, but are placed at once under some cover to ripen; and yield the remainder of their seed, either by being threshed or shaken.

470. The red clover is an important and frequent article in the Flemish rotations. The quantity of seed sown does not exceed six pounds and a quarter to the English acre. The soil is ploughed deep and well prepared, and the crop kept very clear of weeds. Their great attention to prevent weeds, is marked by the perseverance practised to get rid of one, which occasionally infests the clover crop, and is indeed most difficult to be exterminated. The Orobanche, or broom rape (Orobanche major) (fig. 57.), is a parasitical plant which attaches itself to the pea tribe. In land where clover has been too frequently sown, it stations itself at its root, and, if suffered to arrive at its wonted vigour, will spread and destroy an entire crop. The farmer considers the mischief half done, if this dangerous plant is permitted to appear above the surface; and he takes the precaution to inspect his clover in the early spring. The moment the Orobanche establishes itself at the root, the stem and leaf of the clover, deprived of their circulating juices, fade to a sickly hue, which the farmer recognises, and, with true Flemish industry, roots up and destroys the latent enemy. If this is done in time, and with great care, the crop is saved; if not, the infected soil refuses to yield clover again for many years.

471. The turnip is not in general cultivated as a main crop, but usually after rye or rape, or some crop early removed. The turnip is sown broad-cast, thinned, and hoed with great care; but it affords a very scanty crop of green food, generally eat off with sheep in September or later. The Swedish turnip is unknown; and indeed the turnip husbandry, as practised in Britain, cannot be considered as known in Flanders.

472. The potato was introduced early in the seventeenth century, but attracted little notice till the beginning of the eighteenth. It is cultivated with great care. The ground is trenched to the depth of nearly two feet; and small square holes having been formed at about eighteen inches from each other, a set is deposited in each, the hole nearly filled with dung, and the earth thrown back over all. As the stalks rise they are earthed up from the intervals, and manured with liquid manure; and, as they continue to rise, they receive a second earthing round each distinct plant, which, with a suitable weeding, terminates the labour. Notwithstanding the distance between the plants, the whole surface is closely covered by the luxuriance of the stems, and the return is abundant. If the seed is large, it is cut; if small, it is planted whole. In some parts of the Pays de Waes they drop the potato sets in the furrow as the plough works, and cross-hoe them as they rise; but the method first mentioned is the most usual, and the produce in many cases amounts to ten tons and one sixth, by the English acre.

473. Potatoes are the chief food of the lower classes. They are prized in Flanders, as being both wholesome and economical, and are considered there so essential to the subsistence of a dense population, that at one time it was in serious contemplation to erect a statue, or some other monument of the country's gratitude, to the person who first introduced amongst them so valuable a production. They are also very much used in feeding cattle and swine; but, for this purpose, a particular sort, much resembling our ox-noble, or cattle potato, is made use of, and the produce is in Flanders, as with us, considerably greater than that of the other kinds intended for the table.

474. The carrot is a much valued crop in sandy loam. The culture is as follows:After harvest they give the land a moderate ploughing, which buries the stubble, and clearing up the furrows to drain off the waters, they let the field lie so for the winter; early in spring they give it a second ploughing very deep (from eleven to twelve inches), and shortly after they harrow the surface well, and spread on it ninety-six carts of manure to the bonnier, about twenty-one tons to the English acre. This manure is in general half from the dunghill, and half of what is termed merde, or a collection from the privies, which being ploughed in, and the surface made smooth, they sow the seed in the month of April, broad-cast, and cover it with a harrow. The quantity sown is estimated at eleven pounds to the bonnier, or about three pounds to the English acre. The average produce, about one hundred and sixty bushels to the English acre.

415. The carrot, as nutritive food both for cattle and horses, is a crop extremely valuable. In Flanders it is generally substituted in the room of hay, and a moderate quantity of oats is also given. To each horse, in twenty-four hours, a measure is allotted, which weighs about twenty-five pounds. This appears a great quantity, but it makes hay-feeding altogether unnecessary. To each of the milch cows, a similar measure is given, including the tops, and this is relied on for good butter, both as to quantity and quality.

476. The white beet, or mangold-würzel, is not in use in Flanders as food for cattle, but was once cultivated very extensively for the production of sugar. At the time the French government encouraged the manufacture of sugar from this root, experiments were made on a considerable scale, and with great success, in the town of Bruges. The machinery was unexpensive, and the remaining cost was merely that of the manual labour, and a moderate consumption of fuel. The material itself came at a very low rate, about ten shillings British by the ton; and to this circumstance may be chiefly attributed the cessation of the manufacture. Instead of encouraging the cultivator, the government leaned altogether to the manufacturer, and made it imperative on every farmer to give up a certain proportion of his land to this root, without securing to him a fair remuneration. The consequence was, that the manufacturers, thus supported, and taking advantage of the constrained supply, have in many instances been known to refuse payment even of the carriage of a parcel, in other respects sent in gratuitously; and a consequence still more natural was, that the farmers, wherever they had the opportunity of shaking off so profitless a crop, converted the space it occupied to better purposes.

477. To the manufacturer of beet root sugar the profit was ample. An equal quantity of sugar with that of the West Indies, which at that time sold for five shillings a pound, could be produced on the spot from mangold-würzel, at less than one shilling by the pound: and to such perfection had the sugar thus made arrived, that the prefect, mayor, and some of the chief persons of Bruges, who were invited by a manu. facturer to witness the result of his experiments, allowed the specimens which he produced to exceed those of the foreign sugar,

48. The process of manufacturing beet root sugar, as then in use, was simple. A cylindrical grater of sheet-iron was made to work in a trough, prepared at one side in the hopper form, to receive the cleanwashed roots of the beet, which, by the rotation of this rough cylinder, were reduced to a pulp. This pulp, when placed in bags of linen or hair-cloth, and submitted to a pressure resembling that of a cider press, yielded its liquor in considerable quantity; which being boiled and subjected to a proportion of lime, the saccharine matter was precipitated. The liquor being then got rid of, a solution of sulphuric acid was

added to the precipitate, which being boiled again, the lime was disengaged; the saccharine matter, being then freed from the liquor, granulated, and was ready for the refiner. The pulp has been found to yield upon distillation, a wholesome spirit, very inferior, but not very unlike, to geneva, and has been proved excellent as a manure, but not valuable as food for cattle, beyond the first or second day from the press. The foregoing process required but a fortnight to complete it.

479. Flax is cultivated with the utmost care. The field intended for this crop, after two or three ploughings and harrowings, is again ploughed, commencing in the centre, and ploughing round and round to the circumference, so as to leave it without any furrow. The heavy roller is drawn across the ploughing by three horses; the liquid manure is then spread equally over the entire surface, and when well harrowed in by eight or nine strokes of the harrow, the seed is sown, which is also harrowed in by a light harrow, with wooden pins of less than three inches; and the surface, to conclude the operation, is again carefully rolled. Nothing can exceed the smoothness and cultivated appearance of fields thus accurately prepared.

480. The manure universally used for the flax crop, demands particular notice: it is termed liquid manure, and consists of the urine of cattle, in which rape-cake has been dissolved, and in which the vidanges conveyed from the privies of the adjoining towns and villages have also been blended. This manure is gradually collected in subterraneous vaults of brickwork, at the verge of the farm next to the main road. Those receptacles are generally forty feet long, by fourteen wide, and seven or eight feet deep, and in some cases are contrived with the crown of the arch so much below the surface of the ground, as to admit the plough to work over it. An aperture is left in the side, through which the manure is received from the cart by means of a shoot or trough, and at one end an opening is left to bring it up again, by means of a temporary pump, which delivers it either into carts or tonneaus.

481. The liquid is carried to the field in sheets or barrels, according to the distance. Where the cart plies, the manure is carried in a great sheet called a voile, closed at the corners by running strings, and secured to the four uprights of the carts; and two men, standing one on each side of the cart, scatter it with hollow shovels upon the rolled ground. Where the tonneaus are made use of, each is carried by two men with poles, and set down at equal intervals across the field in the line of the rolling. There are two sets of vessels, which enable the men, who deposit the loaded ones, to bring back the others empty. One man to each vessel, with a scoop, or rather a kind of bowl with a long handle, spreads the manure, so as to cover a certain space; and thus, by preserving the intervals correctly, they can precisely gauge the quantity for a given extent of surface. For the flax crop they are profuse; and of this liquid mixture, in this part of the country, they usually allow at the rate of 2480 gallons, beer measure, to the English acre.

It

58

482. Spurry (Spérgula arvénsis) (fig. 58.) is cultivated on the poorest soils. It is so quick of growth and short of duration, that it is often made to take an intermediate place between the harvest and the spring sowing, without any strict adherence to the regularity of succession. is sown sometimes in the spring, but in general in the autumn, immediately after harvesting the corn crops. One light ploughing is sufficient; and as the grain is very small, it is but very lightly covered. About twenty-four pounds of seed to the acre is the usual quantity. Its growth is so rapid that in five or six weeks it acquires its full height, which seldom exceeds twelve or fourteen inches. The crop is of course a light one, but is considered of great value, both as supplying a certain quantum of provender at very little cost, and as being the best food for milch cows, to improve the quality of the butter. It lasts till the frost sets in, and is usually fed off by milch cows tethered on it, but is sometimes cut and carried to the stalls.

483. Where spurry is sown in spring the crop is occasionally made into hay; but from the watery nature of the plant, it shrinks very much in bulk, and upon the whole is much more advantageously consumed in the other manner. It is indigenous in Flanders; and, except when cultivated, is looked on as a weed, as in this country.

484. The hop is cultivated on good soils, and generally after wheat. The land being four times ploughed, the plants are put in, in the month of May, in rows with intervals of six feet, and six feet distant in the row. In the month of October they raise the earth round each plant, in little mounds about two feet and a half high, for the purpose of encouraging a number of shoots, and of preserving them from the frost. When all harsh weather has disappeared, about the beginning of April in the second year, they level those little heaps, and take away all superfluous shoots at the root, leaving but four or five of the strongest. They then spread over the entire surface, at the rate of twelve carts of 1500 lbs. each, by the English acre, of dung, either of cows, or of cows

and swine mixed; but they avoid the heat and fermentation of horse-dung. This dressing is given when the shoots begin to appear; at which time also, they fix in the earth, close to each hill, a pole of dry wood, about eighteen feet in length, for the vines to cling by. In the month of July, they give the surface another dressing with urine, at the rate of 1000 gallons the English acre. In the month of August, the crop has nearly arrived at its full growth, and flourishes in all its beauty.

485. The crop is ready to gather in the month of September, when they cut the runners at about three feet from the ground, and in November they cut them to the earth; they then heap up the soil about each plant as before, to the height of two feet and a half, and follow precisely the same course as abovementioned each year, during five, which is the usual time they suffer the plantation to continue, and at the expiration of which the land is in the highest condition, and suited to the reception of any other

crop.

486. Madder is sometimes cultivated, but only on land of the best quality, and with plenty of manure. At the end of April or May, accordingly as the young plants are large enough to be transplanted, the land must be ploughed in beds of two feet and two feet and a half wide; the beds are then to be harrowed and raked, and the young suckers of the roots or plants are to be put down in rows, at intervals of a foot or a foot and a half, and six or eight inches distant in the row.

467. During the entire summer the land should be frequently stirred, and kept free from weeds. In the month of November, when the leaves are faded, the plants are covered with two inches of earth by a plough, having the point of the coulter a little raised or rounded, so as not to injure the young plants.

8. In the following spring, when the young shoots are four or five inches long, they are gathered or torn off, and planted in new beds, in the same manner as has been pointed out above; and then in the month of September or October, after the faded leaves have been removed, the old roots are taken up. 499. The madder thus taken up should be deposited under cover, to protect it from the rain; and, after ten or twelve days, placed in an oven moderately heated. When dried sufficiently, it is gently beaten with a flail, to get rid of any clay that may adhere to the plants; and, by means of a small windmill, is ground and sifted, to separate it from any remaining earth or dirt. It is then replaced in the oven for a short time, and when taken out is spread upon a hair-cloth to cool; after which it is ground and cleaned once more. It is then carried to a bruising-mill, and reduced to a fine powder, after which it is packed in casks or barrels for market.

490. The culture of woad, though not general, has been practised in Flanders. It was an object with the French government to spread the cultivation of it, and a considerable quantity of seed was sent gratis into the country for that purpose.

491. Woad thrives only on gravelly and sandy soils, which must be well pulverised, manured, and formed into beds, as in the case of madder culture. It is sown in March or April in rows, or broad-cast, and harrowed or covered with a rake. All weeds are cleared away, and the plants thinned, if a careful culture is followed. The leaves are the part of the plant which is used by the indigo manufacturer. They should be gathered singly, like those of spinach, as soon as they begin to show signs of maturity, and the mature leaves taken off from time to time as they grow. This operation goes on from June to September in the first year, and from June to August in the second; when the plant being a biennial, shoots into flower stems. The leaves are fermented, and the dye precipitated from the liquor and dried, &c., in a manner analogous to what is practised in India with indigo; but with great improvements, made at the instance of the French government, which, in 1810, called forth the process described in a French work, and translated in the appendix to Radcliff's report. At present it is to be considered more as matter of curious historical information, or of local adoption, than of general utility; because no mode of cultivating or preparing woad could bring it into competition, either in the European or American market, with indigo.

The

492. With culinary vegetables the Flemish markets are abundantly supplied. Most of these are grown by the small farmers, and are of excellent quality. To every cottage in Flanders a garden of some description is attached; and according to the means, the leisure, and the skill of the possessor, is rendered more or less productive. The general principles of management with all are, frequent digging, careful weeding, ample manuring, and immediate succession. The rotation depends on circumstances. chief vegetables in common use are, parsnep, carrot, turnip, scorzonera, savoy, jettechou cabbage (Brussels sprouts), onions, leeks, peas, beans, and all kinds of salading, with another vegetable called fève haricot, a large species of French bean, which has a place in the field or garden of almost every farmer, and being sliced down, pod and seed, is made a chief ingredient in all farm-house.cookery.

493. The treatment of asparagus here, and generally in Flanders, differs considerably from our method. In forming their beds, they are not by any means particular as to very deep trenching, or a profusion of manure; nor, as they grow up, do they cover the beds with litter for the winter, nor fork and dress them in the spring. In the furrows they form a rich and mellow compost of earth and dung, with which, before winter sets in, they dress up the beds to the height of nearly eighteen inches from the level of the crowns; and, without any further operation (except supplying the furrows again for the ensuing year), as soon as the buds appear, they cut them nine inches under the surface, by which means, having but just reached the light, the whole of the stock is

blanched.

494. The frequent manurings given by the Flemish farmer astonish a stranger; the sources whence it is obtained in sufficient quantity form the difficulty, and this can only be resolved by referring to the practice of soiling; to the numerous towns and villages; and to the care with which every particle of vegetable or animal refuse is saved for this purpose. Manure in Flanders, as in China, is an article of trade. The selling price of each description is easily ascertained; the towns let the cleansing of the streets and public retiring places at great rents. Chaptal says there are in every town sworn brokers, expressly for the purpose of valuing night soil; and that these brokers know the exact degree of fermentation in that manure which suits every kind of vegetable, at the different periods of its growth. (Chimie appliquée à l'Agriculture, 1. 137.)

495. Every substance that constitutes, or is convertible to, manure, is sought after with avidity, which accounts for the extreme cleanliness of the Flemish towns and pavements, hourly resorted to, with brooms and barrows, as a source of profit. Even the chips which accumulate in the formation of the wooden shoes worn by the peasantry, are made to constitute a part of the compost dung-heap; and trees are frequently cultivated in barren lands, merely to remain till their deciduous leaves shall, in course of time, have formed an artificial surface for the purpose of cultivation. The manures in general use

are,

496. The farm-yard dung, which is a mixture of every matter that the farm-yard produces, formed into a compost, which consists of dung and litter from the stables, chaff, sweepings, straw, sludge, and rubbish, all collected in a hollow part of the yard, so prepared as to prevent the juices from being wasted; and the value of this, by the cart-load of 1500 lbs. of Ghent, is estimated at five francs.

497. The dung of sheep, pigeons, or poultry, by the same cart-load, five francs and a half.

498. Sweepings of streets and roads, same quantity, three francs.

499. Ashes of peat and wood mixed, same quantity, eight francs.

500. Privy manure and urine, same quantity, seven francs.

501. Lime, same quantity, twenty-four francs.

502. Rape-cake, per hundred cakes, fifteen francs.

503. Gypsum, sea mud, and the sediment of the canals, have been all tried experimentally, and with fair results: but the two former have been merely tried; the latter is used successfully in the vicinity of Bruges.

504. Bone manure was altogether unknown in Flanders; but, at the suggestion of Rad liff, is now under experiment in that country.

505. The agricultural implements of Flanders are by no means such as the excellence of the Flemish culture would lead us to suspect. They are in general of rude workmanship, but constructed with attention to strength, durability, and cheapness.

506. The plough has a rude appearance, but works easily, and makes excellent work in loose friable soil; though it would not make a sharp angled furrow-slice in breaking up pastures. It is never drawn by more than two horses, and on light sands often by one, or by a single ass.

507. The binot, or Walloon plough, used in Brabant, described by Sir John Sinclair, is a plough with a double or scuffler share, two mould-boards, but no coulter. It is chiefly used for breaking up lands. If the soil is foul, they employ it two or three times, for the purpose of cleaning it thoroughly. The land is not turned over, as by the plough, and the weeds buried, but the soil is elevated into small ridges, by means of which the couch and other root-weeds are not only cut, but they are exposed to the frost in winter, and to the drought of spring; and when the land becomes dry, which it does quickly when thus elevated, these weeds are collected by the harrow, by a trident (or large pitchfork), by a rake, or by the hand. After the binot, the land is always ploughed for the seed furrow. This implement and its appli cation are strongly recommended to the British farmer, by Sir J. Sinclair, as improvements; but, as the editor of the Farmer's Magazine observes, the implement is nothing more than a double mould-board plough, and the operation of ridging with it is the justly exploded practice of "ribbing." The late machinist Weir informed us, that he had orders for several binots from Sir J. Sinclair and others, and that he used exactly the same form, as when a double mould-board plough was ordered.

59

508. The mouldebaert (fig. 59.) is a curious and useful implement. It resembles a large square malt or cinder shovel, strongly prepared with iron on the cutting edge, and