CHEMICO-AGKICULTURAL TOUR. J 53 



In other cases, particularly where the manure is to be applied to 

 the roots of the plants, it is distributed by means of ladles with 

 long handles attached to them ; and on small holdings, where the 

 occupants have but few to assist them in the culture of their 

 ground, the liquid manure is frequently distributed by strapping a 

 small barrel filled with it to the back of a laborer, who, by means 

 of a flexible tube connected with 'an aperture in the bottom of a 

 barrel, can readily distribute the manure where it is required. In 

 the application of manure, the Flemish farmers are not content 

 with manuring the ground most liberally before the sowing of the 

 seed, but they apply it afterwards at diflerent stages of the growth 

 of the plants under cultivation ; and this frequent application of 

 manure accounts, in a great measure, not only for their success in 

 raising good crops, but likewise for the rapidity with which they 

 obtain them, which has surprised those acquainted only with the 

 slower methods of cultivation as practiced in other countries. 



Another peculiarity in the agriculture of Flanders is, the great 

 amount of labor there bestowed on the soil in their repeated and 

 deep tillage of it. This is efiFected in some districts by the use of 

 the plough, and in others by the spade, or frequently by the com- 

 bined use of both ; for after the plough has opened the furrows, a 

 person often follows deepening them with the spade, and throwing 

 up the earth on the part already ploughed. By this means a 

 greater depth of soil is exposed to the action of the air, which pro- 

 duces in it many beneficial changes ; and by the subsequent plough- 

 ings and harrowings to which it is subjected, is brought to a very 

 fine tilth, and placed in the most suitable condition for the cultiva- 

 tion of the intended crop. 



Combined with this frequent working of the soil is the careful 

 weeding of it, and there is, perhaps, no other nation that take so 

 much pains as the Flemish to free their land from weeds, and keep 

 it clean ; so that one of the features of the agriculture of Flanders 

 that a visitor cannot fail to remark is the cleanliness of the ground, 

 and the freedom of their crops from weeds. 



Another striking feature of Flemish agriculture is that, according 

 to their system, the land is kept continually cropped, and not al- 

 lowed to remain in fallow ; and they manage to take what they 

 terra recolles de robees (stolen crops) between the reaping of one 

 and the sowing of another, as, for example, turnips or spurry be- 

 tween wheat and rye. 



