550 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 



red. I was once asked, what bearing had the color of the 

 trousers of a soldier of the French army, which are red, upon 

 agriculture. The answer is obvious ; so infinitely diversified and 

 innumerable are the circumstances which affect the various 

 relations and interests of social life. 



10. MADDER.* Madder is one of the most important of all 

 the plants used in dyeing, and is cultivated at great expense. It 

 is two years, and sometimes three, before the crop is gathered. 

 There are two kinds cultivated the one with a quadrangular, 

 the other with an hexagonal stem. The former is the most 

 productive ; the latter produces madder of the best quality. 



The soil required for its production should be deep and rich: 

 a clayey soil will produce good madder, but its working is diffi 

 cult ; a soil, therefore, in which sand enough prevails with the 

 clay to render it friable, is that which is to be chosen. It must 

 be deeply cultivated, as the roots, which constitute the value of 

 the crop, run down very far. A plough will scarcely go deep 

 enough, and the land should be trenched with a spade to the 

 depth of at least three feet. Manure should be ploughed in and 

 dug in until the whole bed becomes most thoroughly enriched. 

 It is advised to plough in the solid manure in the autumn, and 

 in the spring to apply liquid manure, urine and fecal matter 

 intermixed. Cow manure and stable manure are also applied 

 with advantage j and the land should especially be rich from 

 former cultivation, and from having been thoroughly cleaned of 

 weeds. The manure should not only pervade the surface, but 

 be buried deeply, that the roots may not want for nourishment 

 as they go down. 



Madder should be sowed in a nursery-bed in a garden, and the 

 seed of the last year should be used, as seed of more than a year 

 old germinates at a very late period after planting. It is well to 

 lay the ground in beds three feet wide, to receive two rows of 

 plants ; or in five feet beds, to receive four rows of plants. The 

 plants are to be set in line, a foot apart, and the rows at an equal 

 distance. The intervals between the beds are to be shovelled 

 out, and the ground kept loose by a spade until the second year, 

 when the roots of the plants extend into the intervals, in which 



* Rubia Tindorum Sativa, 



