On the Agriculture of the Netherlands. 257 



break in the scutching. As soon as the fibres separate from the woody 

 part the whole length of the plant, it is immediately taken out of the 

 water, the bundles are untied, and the flax is spread out to dry on a piece 

 of short grass, the place having been previously well swept, that no earth 

 or dirt may be on it. In rainy weather this process is deferred ; as rain 

 would now injure the flax materially. It remains on the grass ten or 

 twelve days, and is frequently turned over during that time. It is then 

 housed, and in the course of the winter it is scutched and heckled, 

 operations which, not being necessarily connected with agriculture, need 

 not be described here.'' 



Hemp is also an important product, and a considerable quantity 

 is raised in the Netherlands. 



" The soil on which hemp is intended to be sown is ploughed in 

 autumn and again in spring. In the middle of May it is manured with 

 15 tons of good rotten dung, which is immediately ploughed in, unless 

 the land had been manured in autumn, which is the better practice, as 

 then the dung is already in a decomposed state at the spring ploughing. 

 In some small farms the hemp-land is trenched and prepared with the 

 spade, and it amply repays the additional expense. In either case the 

 liquid manure is not omitted, especially if vidanges can be procured : 

 five tubs of this last, each as much as a horse can draw on the land, are 

 considered as good a dressing as 15 hogsheads of the common tank 

 liquor, which is chiefly cows' urine. This manure is allowed to sink 

 into the soil for three or four days ; the land is then harrowed, and about 

 half a bushel of hemp-seed is sown per acre. The seed should be heavy, 

 shining, and dark-coloured, and of the preceding crop: in three or four 

 days the plants make their appearance, and soon after this they are care- 

 fully weeded and thinned out by hand. In very good soils, and where 

 strong hemp is required, the plants are left 6 inches from each other. 

 The strongest plants are pulled up in preference, as the male plants, 

 which produce no seed, appear first. The names of male and female, as 

 applied to the plants of hemp by botanists, are usually inverted by the 

 hemp-growers. They call that which produces the seed the male plant, 

 and that which is barren the female. These names were no doubt used 

 before the sexual system was well understood ; but we shall call that the 

 female which bears the seed. The male plants arrive first at maturity, 

 at the time when the flower sheds the pollen which impregnates the 

 female. They should then be gathered, as they would wither and be- 

 come useless if left till the seed was ripe on the female plants. This 

 taking out the male plants does good to those which remain ; and in 

 order that this mny be done without breaking the females, the seed should 

 be sown in narrow beds with paths between them. From this circum- 

 stance arises a practice of sowing hemp in a border all round a garden 

 or potato-ground, or in rows, with potatoes between them." 



" The produce of an acre of hemp in Flanders is about 350 lbs. of 

 hemp, and from 30 to 35 bushels of seed, if the soil is good and well 

 cultivated. It is not usual to sow hemp repeatedly in the same ground, 

 as is done in many other countries, and also in parts of England, where 

 a hemp-land is a name given to some enclosure near the farm-house, 



