252 On the Agriculture of the Netherlands. 



" The colza is a plant which requires a good and rather strong soil, 

 as well as a careful cultivation. In Flanders it enters into the regular 

 rotations on all good heavy loams, and is thought an excellent prepara- 

 tion for wheat, as may be well supposed, when it is considered how the 

 soil is tilled for this plant, how much it is manured, and what care is 

 taken to keep it clear from weeds. 



" In the polders, w^here fallows are still occasionally resorted to, colza 

 often supplies their place. It is sown broad-cast in July, as turnips are. 

 The ground is ploughed in autumn and in spring, and again a short time 

 before the seed is sown, and well manured with farm-yard dung. The 

 seed is sown very thin and harrowed in : as the plants come up they are 

 weeded and thinned out, so as to leave them 9 inches or a foot apart. 

 Before winter they have acquired a considerable size, and the stems 

 have had the earth drawn up to them : thus they remain all winter 

 without injury from the frost : in spring they are weeded again and the 

 earth gathered round each plant, which ensures a vigorous growth of the 

 seed-stem. After flowering in April and May the seed-pods fill, and 

 begin to get ripe in June or July : care is taken to cut the crop before 

 the pods are fully ripe, or they would shed a great part of the seed. 

 Dry warm weather suits this best; as then the stems may be laid on the 

 ground for a short time to dry, and the seed may be immediately 

 thrashed out on a cloth in the field, which is soon accomplished if the 

 weather permits. The crop is then safe, and is stored in a dry and airy 

 granary till it is sent to be crushed. 



" But this is not the mode in which colza is cultivated in the other 

 parts of Flanders, as there fallows are unknown, and the land is never 

 left idle. The seed is sown in a bed of good earth, prepared on pur- 

 pose to raise plants to set out after harvest, when the land has already 

 yielded a profitable crop. These plants are taken up carefully in October. 

 When the stubble has been cleared of weeds by the harrows, the land is 

 well manured, ploughed to a good depth, and laid in stitches : the plants 

 are then brought in baskets to the field. A man, with a wide spade 

 made on purpose, opens a gap in the soil, by planting in the spade 

 vertically, as far as the blade will go, and then pressing the handle to- 

 W'ards his body ; a woman or child with a basket or bundle of plants 

 immediately sets one in each corner, and the spade handle being replaced 

 in a perpendicular position, the earth falls back upon the two plants. 

 The man, when he has drawn out the spade, puts his foot between the 

 two plants, and thus presses the earth against their roots. The whole 

 of this operation is performed in far less time than we have taken to de- 

 scribe it ; in fact, practice gives such dexterity, that a double row of 

 plants is set in a very short time all along the bed : the next double row, 

 which is set in returning, is eighteen inches distant from the first, and 

 the plants are placed so as to alternate with those in the first row. In- 

 stead of a spade, some use an instrument called a plantoir, which makes 

 two holes at once, and is pushed in wath the foot pressing on the cross 

 bar C D (see fig.), while the handle A B is held in both hands. In this 

 case a plant is set in each hole by a person following the dibbler, and 

 the earth is pressed to it by the foot. Whichever way the plants are 

 put in, some will always fail, and a supply is kept in the seed-bed to 



