THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Flemish crops on his home farm. It would be a very- 

 cheap piece of patriotism, interesting and instructive to 

 himself and neighbours, because, as I said above, there 

 can be no question on their crops being more profitable 

 than ours ; but whether they are as adaptable to our 

 soils and climate as / believe them to be, is a matter to 

 be proved, and well worthy the very small trouble and 

 expense of trial. 



I have so arranged that for a few pence anyone can 

 have a dozen sorts of seeds, and my pamphlet on 

 Flemish crops. 



A little field divided into four step lands, and each 

 land sown with a separate Flemish crop, would show 

 the whole at a glance. A piece of sandy loam, where 

 turnips had been eaten off, would do well ; twenty-four 

 months would be sufficient to prove the winter as well 

 as spring crops, and their admirable system of double 

 croppings ; but to carry out the latter, a deep as well as 

 tender soil is required. To make this essay on land of 

 a heavy or gravelly soil would not be a fair trial, nor on 

 land poor or weedy — as in Flanders all is in the highest 

 condition as regards manure, and as clean as possible. 

 At the end of two seasons the field of trial could return 

 to its usual crop in the rotation. 



Their corn crops are the same as ours : the novelties 

 to our soils would be the oil plants, the forage plants, 

 the double croppings, and some plants which cannot be 

 classed, but stand alone, such as tobacco on the best 

 lands, yellow lupin in the very worst, sorgh'o, hybrid 

 clover, and lastly, though the most important, the 

 Silesian beet-root, which I call a ffold mine for the 

 'British farmer, as it has been, and is now, to the cul- 

 tivators both great and small, over nearly the whole con- 

 tinent. 



I have devoted my time for the last twelve months to 

 inquiries into the truth of the facts asserted of this crop 

 and the manufacture of it into sugar and spirits. I 

 will for a short time longer continue my exertions ; but 

 after that, if my brother-farmers will not look into these 

 truths, to discover if they cannot enjoy these advan- 

 tages, I must abandon my pursuit after their in- 

 terests. 



It does annoy me to see the smile in the faces of our 

 foreign friends vthen they express their surprise to me, 

 that we do not grow this crop, nor manufacture home- 

 made sugar, nor spirit from roots, nor grow tobacco, 

 nor many other of their valuable crops ! 



Three-fourths of all the sugar consumed by the 36 

 millions of the population of France, is made from 

 home-grown beet- roots. The residue returned to the 

 farm is nearly equal per acre to an acre of Swedish tur- 

 nips as fattening food for cattle and sheep ; and besides 

 this food, every acre produces to the farmer more net 

 profit than the gross return of an acre of good wheat in 

 England ! 



When distilled into spirit more residue is produced 

 than when made into sugar. There are various pro- 

 cesses by which are obtained different proportions of 

 residue, but I will take the average. A ton of roots 

 returns half a ton of sheep or cattle food, but this half 

 ton is equal in nutriment to the ton of raw roots. In 

 fact, cattle cannot be fed on the raw roots till after 

 Christmas, when some of the watery particles are eva- 

 porated. As the spring advances, the roots are of less 

 value for sugar or spirit ; and we know, as spring advances 

 our English mangold wurzel is of more value as cattle 

 food. Thus, the English farmer can understand how 

 that juice which is so valuable to the manufacturer is 

 worse than useless for cattle. 



The heavy land of England by means of this crop 

 ivonl'-l be on a par with turnip soils in the production of 

 ; ;eat, and perhaps supericr. 



I cannot say which soil would produce the most sugar, 



but no doubt the heavy land would give the largest crop 

 of beet. The roots must not be larger than 4w pounds 

 in weight. To effect this the distances between the rows 

 must be regulated by the quality of the soil. All cal- 

 culations are made on the supposition that the crop is 

 20 tons per acre ; but I cannot help thinking that even 

 with the above restriction as to weight for root we could 

 far exceed this 20 tons. 



All that part of the beet root growing above ground 

 is very inferior in saccharine to that below the surface. 

 The sort of seed has much to do with the value of the 

 root and the success of the manufacture. Five per cent, 

 of sugar is an average, but I know a man who last 

 year had six and a-half, entirely owing to his superior 

 seed. 



This is quite an agricultural question. The profit 

 would be so much greater in England to the farmer than 

 the manufacturer, that the farmers must combine to in- 

 troduce it themselves. Even abroad, a distillery is fre- 

 quently started by the farmers and proprietors to obtain 

 a near market for their roots, as it obvious they will not 

 pay for distant land-carriage. 



I know one distillery which works fifty tons of beet 

 per twenty-four hours, from the end of September to 

 the beginning of March, i. e., 126 working days ; if 

 twenty tons per acre are grown as the usual crop, this 

 distillery requires the produce of 317 acres of beet root, 

 which, if sown once in four years, would require four 

 farms of 300 acres each to provide them. 



This shows the great extent to which it might be car- 

 ried in England. The net profit by the sale of these 

 roots to each of these four farms would be £(>lb ! and 

 each would, besides, have sufficientresiduepaidforandon 

 his farm to keep 160 fattening bullocks for four months; 

 of course they having also some cake or corn. 



Now, am I one of those sanguine men whose ducks 

 are swans ? I say I am not, but I only want an inquiry 

 into these facts. These figures will, if cut in half, show 

 the best thing for agriculture I ever knew. 



It would take too much space in this letter to say 

 more about this " gold mine," but in my pamphlet I 

 have fully entered into the particulars of its cultivation, 

 application, and best mode of introduction. All I 

 write I can substantiate, and I think sufficient evidence 

 has been produced to induce my brother-farmers to 

 think upon and inquire into it. This is all I want 

 of them. 



There is a strange misconcepfion and prejudice 

 against the growth of oil seeds in England. It is 

 thought they are injurious to the land ; on the contrary, 

 they certainly draw less from the soil than white-stra wed 

 corn crops, they are a less time in the land, and obtain 

 very much nutriment from the atmosphere : this par- 

 ticularly applies to rape seed, which consists principally 

 of carbon and hydrogen. All those seeds which produce 

 cake are even beneficial crops to the soil, if the cake is 

 eaten by sheep in the same quantity of land as grow the 

 seed which made it. The straw is useful as litter. They 

 are a change to the ground, and are all fallow crops ; in 

 fact, it is in consequence of so many of the Flemish 

 crops being planted at wide intervals that their land is 

 so clean. 



Tlie sorgho had an unluckily dry season last year for 

 its introduction, and was most of it sown too late ; it 

 should be put in the ground now. A friend of mine, 

 last year, had some twenty miles from London, sown in 

 June 8 1 feet high in November. It is making great 

 progress in France, in proof whereof the seed has amaz- 

 ingly risen in price. 



The yellow lupin should be sown now in the poorest 

 sands, to plough in . 



Supposing the " small field" was divided into 14 or 

 15 compartments, I would thus crop them ; and taking 



