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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



the boundar)'. What furrows they have they seem 

 carefully to " spit" out. I suppose they are anxious to 

 get rid of snow and rain-water quickly ; but too much 

 of that I have never seen, for I am sure many five 

 months of summer arc much wetter than the last 

 five we have had here. Their course of husbandry is — 

 betteraves; wheat; oats; clover, mowed often three 

 times; bitteraves ; wheat; oats; then perhaps potatoes 

 or colza for seed, or beans ; and then wheat for last. The 

 wheat is harrowed and weU- rolled in spring ; cut with 

 a bagging hook, shocked with a hood sheat, and har- 

 vested as it ought to be, from what I saw of the dry 

 samples of white wheat in the markets (brown is not 

 much grown). It is thrashed with a flail, and sold by 

 the hectolitre,?, e., 200 pints, worth now about 16s. 8d., 

 i. e., 5s. 6d. per bushel; bread and gin being the only 

 cheap things here. The former is three pounds for S^d. 

 Straw delivered is worth 5rl. per truss. 



The oats are generally white, and are harvested in the 

 same manner ; and of them the only thing worthy of 

 remark is, the very small quantity of seed they give 

 to them : they are worth about 3s. 6d. a bushel ; they 

 grow great cropsi 



The clover they make like corn. They tie them in 

 little bundles, and set them up like corn sheaves ; con- 

 sequently it is all woefully made too much, put in little 

 stacks, a:id when sold at £3 10s. a load is delivered in 

 these same bundles, weighing 9 lbs. each, without a 

 tilt ; consequently, if delivered in damp weather, not 

 worth mucli after a fortnight's housing in a hay-loft. 

 Their hay is made much as ours ; and did they not 

 stack and deliver it in the same ridiculous way as the 

 clover, it would be of excellent quality : they arc both 

 the same price. Extraordinary that these capital 

 farmers should not have copied our admirable manner 

 of stacking and trussing hay ! I should fancy they grow 

 large crops of clover, as I saw many pieces being cut, 

 for soiling the cows and horses, the third time, at the 

 rate of a load an acre. This, of course, is never made 

 into hay. 



The colza is sown in beds in the latter end of July, 

 and transplanted (in land manured) in October, in rows 

 across four-step lands, one foot from row to row and 

 four inches in the row. It is cut in July : a good crop 

 is thirty bushels an acre of seed, worth 6s. per bushel. 

 The land is generally immediately ploughed, and sown 

 with white turnips (like our six-weeks' turnips), which 

 come off in time for wheat. The disease of the potatoes 

 has troubled them like us, but I think not to the same 

 extent. It has for some five years past been gradually 

 becoming less ; they grow about ten tons an acre ; the 

 best worth £Z 5s. per ton. Peas they seldom grow. 

 Beans they do occasionally, which they principally give 

 the fatt.ng hogs. Barley is little sown in this district. 



You see their prices are about the same as ours, so 

 that with the advantage also of the betteraves, I do not 

 think an English farmer could extract more gross re- 

 turn per acre than they do ; and this, added to the 

 heavy stock of cattle they keep, which being fed on 

 bought food has almost no limit but the pocket, make a 

 small farm here a good living. They are a most frugal 

 race, and their great ambition is to save and invest their 

 accumulati.ons in the purchase of land, which fetches an 

 enormous price. A highly, respectable notary informed 

 me 2i per cent, was considered a fair return, A very 

 great proportion farm their own property. 



Leases generally extend to nine years. They have 

 not restrictions in cultivation like us, and the repairs 

 are generally done by the landlord, the farmer providing 

 food the while for the men ; but all here is so solidly 

 bmlt of brick and stone, that the repairs are trifling. 

 The barn and stable-doors being all arched, look like 

 the buildmgs attached to an old monastery or castle, more 



than an isolated little farm of the nineteenth century. 

 They certainly are a contented happy people, and most 

 industrious. On market-days the son or father, gener- 

 ally both, with mother or sisters, take their covererl 

 waggon of corn themselves ; pitch it in the market, 

 place, and, when sold, return in the same manner, the 

 exact quantity and price being taken by a policeman and 

 signed by the seller. I never saw such exact statistics 

 as are taken here by Government in everything. I fancy 

 it will be interesting just now, as the question of agri- 

 cultural returns is so much agitated in England, if I 

 some time send you an account of the progress here 

 made therein, and their manner of doing it ; but I am 

 trespassing on your space. My walk to Bergue I will 

 finish in my next, with their cattle management, and the 

 extraordinary but very general treatment of the pleuro- 

 pneumonia. 



After a few days' stay at the principal hotel at Dun- 

 kirk at the moderate expense of seven shillings per day, 

 I took the rail for Lille. 



This is the northern railway running from Dunkirk 

 and Calais to Paris, the Belgian lines running into it. 

 It is a most profitable affair. The carriages are better 

 than ours : first class more silkily lined, and more softly 

 stuffed, and with hot water tanks for the feet ; the second 

 also have cushions and stuffed backs ; and the third are 

 exactly like our second. The pace is very slow — fifteen 

 to twenty miles an hour; but the price is cheap — first 

 class for fifty miles 6s. lOd. ; 661bs. of luggage is allowed 

 each passenger; all above is charged, but very mode- 

 rately. The grass grows between the rails, the station- 

 houses are inexpensive, and all seems done cheaply for 

 profit. The crossings were all on the flat (no bridges), 

 with a cottage at each for the uwman who has care of it. 

 She stands with her folded flag extended in her right 

 hand, as you pass, with a uniform — black glazed' hat, 

 white cap, blue cape, and wide red collar. Nothing 

 more is worthy of remark but the fences : they are the 

 same all the way, made of oak laths, about a yard high, 

 upright, four inches apart, with two longer ones tied 

 tggether along the top ; and at every five feet an oak 

 post, of which a pole of six or eight inches diameter 

 would make four, the whole being tied together by three 

 double rails (if I may so call them) of iron wire, which 

 are twisted round each lath the whole way, and the two 

 tie laths on the top are served the same. It is stronger 

 than you would fancy, has stood seventeen years, and 

 with new posts will stand many longer. It is good 

 against sheep and hogs, and might often be economically 

 applied at home — a good protection to a young quick 

 near a farmyard. The same sort of landscape prevails 

 the whole way (as I have described it), with the exception 

 of some rising ground about Cassell (halfway). I saw 

 two or three small hop grounds, on ridges much nar- 

 rower and higher than ours ; but I will describe their 

 manner of management at the same time as I speak of 

 their malt and beer. 



A long delay took place at Calais junction, waiting 

 for the London train, during which time I was much 

 amused at the sang froid of a Zouave in a first class 

 carriage ; a little sallow man in yellow leather leggings, 

 blue breeches large enough for three, embroidered 

 jacket, and red cloth cap— in Algeria they put on it the 

 white cloth, which makes it a turban : you might readily 

 fancy him a Turk. The reason he was in a first class 

 is, all soldiers and officers here have the entree of rail- 

 ways and theatres for one-fourth the price of other 

 people— a great advantage to the rank and file of the 

 infantry, who have only a halfpenny per day. This is 

 the fact ; and very happy and content they are. Of 

 couKse all necessaries are found them ; and I am not at 

 all astonished at their predilection for military life : 

 they have little to do. 



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