July 9, 1874. ) 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENEB. 



29 



factories, animal black, cinders, street-sweppings, emshed 

 booes, and the refuse of Flax and Colza. His younger chil- 

 dren are oat at dawn with a litter cart, gathering-up from the 

 roads and fields all that, according to agricultural chemistry, 

 can restore to the land what has been drawn from it. Peru 

 sends it guano ; and the farmer is seen in spring, sack in 

 hand, sowing the precious powder on the barren portions of 

 his land ; and the flinty soil swallows it all with puch promp- 

 titude, that it must be manured twice or three times a-year. 

 In no country is such high farming carried on, and it would 

 be ruinous without the rich return of these plants, and 

 the accessory crops which are gathered after the principal 

 ones. 



Id Eastern Flanders, of one hundred acres of land seventy- 

 two are sown with cereals and plants used in manufactures ; 

 twenty-eight with roots and forage ; but to this must be added 

 thirty-one acres of after-crop, which gives sixty-nine as afford- 

 ing excellent food for cattle, superior to common meadows, 

 and which explains how poor land can pay a rent of £5 an 

 acre. The second sowing consists of Turnips and Spergula 

 after Colza, Flax, and early Potatoes ; and the Carrot which 

 is sown in spring with the preceding crops, and carefully hoed 

 after they have been taken away. The Clovers having oc 

 cnpied the ground during winter, leave it clear for the April 

 sowing ; and the giant Cabbage developes during the cold 

 season, making a stem 6 feet high, and giving abundant and 

 excellent leaves for milch cows. Culture thus puthed to the 

 extreme necessai'ily requires some capital, and it is reckoned 

 that through a system of rigorous parsimony and saving, 

 double the sum per acre is used in Belgium to that employed 

 in England, and two-thirds more in the best farms. In this 

 way the most dense population in Europe can subsist on a 

 soil so little favoured by Nature. Here it will be observed 

 that the small farmers of Belgium, with the ten or fifty acres, 

 place their reliance on a variety of crops, such as we could not 

 profitably introduce into England. We might say the same 

 thing of small farming in Lombardy. There the land bears 

 three crops at once — Mulberry trees, grown for the sake of 

 their leaves as food for silkworms ; Wheat beneath the trees ; 

 and Vines in the hollows of the ridges. In the south of 

 France we see the same diversity ; in some places OUve trees 

 for the oil they produce, taking the place of the Mulberry. In 

 such parts the country is like a garden ; and with little winter, 

 there is something growing all the year round. 



Turning to one of the most fertile parts of Belgium, all, as 

 has been said, is charming — every road is bordered with trees ; 

 not a rise in the ground is seen ; all is calm, uniform, and 

 presents an image of quiet comfort and peace. Each house is 

 detached, and surrounded with large Apple orchards, hedged- 

 in by Box, Holly, or Hawthorn, where the cows are brought to 

 feed every morning and evening ; it is of one storey only, and 

 thatched, containing four rooms, the first for meals, the second 

 for the dairy and preparing the food for cattle, the others for 

 sleeping rooms. The old-fashioned oak furniture is a model 

 of brightness ; tin and copper utensils shine on the walls, which 

 are whitewashed. The garden is gay with Wallflowers, Dahlias, 

 and Hydrangeas, and the florists' flowers which are to be 

 shown at Ghent. Outside, everything is in its place; nothing 

 spoils the green sward ; the ditch and the manure-heap are 

 banished ; the latter is always under the roof of the stable or 

 cow-shed. In this stand five or six largo cows, the constant 

 care of the farmer's wife, who gives them abundance of green 

 meat in the summer, with straw, hay, and a kind of warm 

 soup, mixed with Carrots, Turnips, or Rye in winter. Thanks 

 to this nourishment, and the constant rest they enjoy, the 

 animals give from 15 to 25 quarts of milk daily. Tho tools 

 are simple, but of first-rate construction ; the plough is light, 

 drawn by one horse, and works with ease, rapidity, and regu- 

 larity. The harrows are of various kinds, triangular, rectan- 

 gular, or a parallelogram ; but the special tool with which the 

 Fleming has fertilised sands, dried-up marshes, and forced 

 back the sea, is the spade. The proverb on the banks of the 

 Scheldt is : ** The spade is a gold mine to the peasant ;" and 

 different kinds are made for light or heavy soil. The fields 

 are mostly square, and rarely contain more than an acre; the 

 ground is curved symmetrically, the centre being the highest, 

 BO that the water drains downs equally in all directions. Round 

 the field, and a foot lower, extends a strip of grass, 3 or 4 yards 

 wide ; still lower, a hedge of Elders is planted, which is cut 

 every seven years ; and, finally, the plot is surrounded by a 

 ditch, bordered with trees of larger growth. Thus each piece 

 famishes rich Grass, firewood every seven years, and timber 



for building every thirty years. The plough is generally used ; 

 but every seven years the subsoil is turned to the top by the 

 spade, and thus it acquires a depth unknown to all but the 

 bpst gardens ; the piincipal object being to produce Flax and 

 butter, not cereals. The best farmers never sell their corn, 

 but allow their cattle to consume it. Unhappily, the farm- 

 labourer there, as elsewhere, does not enjoy much comfort ; 

 working harder than most men, he is the worst fed. Rye-bread, 

 Potatoes, Beans, buttermilk, without meat or bacon, is the 

 usual fare, chicory the constant drink; beer is reserved for 

 Sundays and fair days. His wages vary from lOd. to Is., and 

 he could never live upon it did not all the members of his 

 family work without ceasing. 



Yet, though thtir life is so bard, the towns do not attract 

 the rural population. Habit and family traditions bind them 

 to the plough ; whilst every nine years, at the renewal of their 

 lease, the raising of the rent fills them with anxiety and 

 poisons iheir existence. It makes them distrust all those who 

 are making inquiry on the state of agriculture, and dissimulate 

 as to the fertility of their land and the produce they obtain 

 from it. Western Flanders is crossed by a strip of land which 

 is particularly difficult of cultivation ; until lately it was 

 scarcely inhabited, and covered with low brushwood and 

 marshy heath. The Reindeer Moss enveloped the trees with 

 a layer as of white ashes ; abundance of Ferns and Moss grew, 

 and the sickly appearance of other plants gave the country a 

 sterile appearance. But by means of the Pine tree this land 

 has also become valuable. About 30,000 young trees are 

 planted on an acre; at the end of seven years these are 

 thinned and sold for firewood. The land must be rich and 

 provided with Fir poles, 3000 to the acre; as it grows the 

 stems have to be tied, and liquid manure given to those plants 

 which show yellow leaves ; finally, at the time of harvest, 

 numbers of work-people have to be gathered together for the 

 picking. But whilst in England the whole of the ground is 

 sacrificed to the Hop, there are in Belgium the most splendid 

 CTop" of Wheat and Beetroot growing between. Chicory, like 

 the Hop, is a very expensive article of culture; but it gives a 

 rich return, estimated at £40 an acre. The produce of Colza 

 is also very valuable. It will be seen that few sheep are fed 

 in a country where there is so little pasture. Horses of great 

 strength, and milch cows which give much butter, and can be 

 fed in the stable, are considered most advantageous, and sta- 

 tistics show that more of these animals are fed on the acre 

 than in any other country. It is to be remarked that the 

 Flemish farmer has compensated for all the disadvantages of 

 his soil and climate by a simple means within the reach of all — 

 that of restoring to the laud what it gives to the wants of men, 

 the secret of agricultural chemistry. — [Chambers's Jownal.) 



THE PEACH CROP IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The Delaware Peach-Growers' Convention met on the 16th 

 of June at Dover. Mr. Townsend, of Newcastle County, pro- 

 bably the best authority on Peaches on the Peninsula, pre- 

 sented some twigs to the meeting, which exhibited the con- 

 dition of the different varieties in his own county particularly, 

 and the country generally. The Hale's Early were the fullest 

 of the specimens shown, and a good crop throughout the 

 Peninsula of this variety, the earliest, is expected. They wUl 

 probably form a very large part of the entire yield for the 

 season. The Troths were also very full, but the Early Yorks 

 did not seem so good. The Old Mixons exhibited only a very 

 small chance for a crop. The Smocks will probably be only 

 tolerably full. The Stump-the- World made a poor show, and 

 the Crawford's Late were about on a par with them. The 

 Crawford's Early made a very excellent show. The Reeves' 

 Favourites looked very promising, and the Moore's Favourite 

 here looked well. 



Mr. Townsend also reported to the Convention that the 

 crop for the present season would fall very far below even 

 that of last year ; that, probably, there would be only one- 

 third as many. There were about 1,500,000 baskets last year. 

 A grower, representing Smyrna and the country around, re- 

 ported the prospect for a good crop in that neighbourhood as 

 very uncertain, and a gentleman from Dover thought that the 

 yield from this section would be very thin, in fact a'most a 

 failure. In Kent County, Maryland, a very prolific Peach 

 section, the crop was reported a failure. In SusBex County, 

 Delaware, a Uke report was made, and the same from the 

 lower portion of the eastern shore of Maryland. The estimates 



