COLZA 903 



or Niobium. A peculiar metal originally extracted from a rare 

 mineral brought from Haddam in Connecticut, and known as Columbite. This is a 

 columbate and tantalate of iron and manganese. Columbium also occurs, with 

 tiintalium, in several rare Swedish minerals. The metal received its name from 

 Columbia (America). See NIOBIUM. 



COIilTXVXN'.A.R COA.Ii. A name given to ANTHRACITE. 



COIiZA is a variety of cabbage, the Brassica oleracea, whose seeds afford by 

 pressure an oil much employed in France and Belgium for burning in lamps, and for 

 many other purposes. This plant requires a rich but light soil ; it does not succeed 

 upon either sandy or clay lands. The ground for it must be deeply ploughed and well 

 dunged. It should be sown in July, and be afterwards replanted in a richly manured 

 field. In October it is to be planted out in beds, 15 or 18 inches apart. Colza may 

 also be sowed in furrows 8 or 10 inches asunder. 



Land which has been just cropped for wheat is that usually destined to colza ; it may 

 be fresh dunged with advantage. The harvest takes place in July, with a sickle, a 

 little before the seeds are completely ripe, lest they should drop off. As the seed is 

 productive of oil, however, only in proportion to its ripeness, the cut plants are allowed 

 to complete their maturation, by laying them in heaps under airy sheds, or placing 

 them in a stack, and thatching it with straw. 



The cabbage stalks are thrashed with flails ; the seeds are winnowed, sifted, and spread 

 out in the air to dry ; then packed away in sacks, in order to be subjected to the oil 

 mill at the beginning of winter. The oil-cake is a very agreeable food to cattle ; it 

 serves to fatten them, and is reckoned to defray the cost of the mill. 



When proper manure was not applied, it was reported that colza impoverished 

 the soil very much, as do indeed, all the plants cultivated for the sake of their 

 oleaginous seeds. The same soil must not, therefore, be come back upon again for six 

 years, if fine crops be desired. The double ploughing which it requires effectually 

 cleans the ground. 



The colza or wild cabbage itself is a plant of sufficient interest to call special 

 attention to its properties. Besides yielding an oil which gives a brilliant light for 

 the lamps of lighthouses, its seed has other properties that should induce the plant 

 to be in favour with agriculturists, emigrants, and colonists. The recent accounts, 

 according to Du Bow, state ' it to be admirably adapted for cattle as food ; that the 

 seeds after the oil is expressed yield a cake highly prized for fattening cattle, and as 

 manure.' ' There is a spring variety which will succeed in almost any part of the 

 United States, and will ultimately become an article of great importance.' 



The real history of this valuable plant seems to be this : The Abbe de Commerell, 

 in a letter to Dr. Lettsom, dated from Paris at the Abbey of St. Victor, 1789, calls 

 especial attention to the colza which he had cultivated for some time in the neighbour- 

 hood of Paris, ' and last year under the inspection of the Royal Society of Agriculture. 

 The severe winter just experienced, which had destroyed great abundance of turnips 

 and cold, had not done the least injury to my plants, which is a proof of resisting the 

 severest cold.' The following description of the plant may lead to its adoption as sources 

 of oil and food. To induce this we may refer to the original communication, 

 now of course sufficiently rare : it is entitled : ' Mimoire sur la Culture, I usage et les 

 avantagcs du Choux a faucher, par M. I' Abbe de Commerell, a Paris,' 1789. He states 

 he found the plant in Germany, where it was only used for seed ; that there are three 

 distinct varieties, known by the colours of the ' nerves' of the leaves : violet, yellow, 

 and green. He gives preference to the violet, ' il est plus abondant, plus sapide, et 

 resiste mieux a 1'impression du froid et a la rigueur des hivers.' He adds, that he 

 presents to the Koyal Society (Agric. de Paris) the plants which had resisted the cold 

 of the preceding winter, ' the most rigorous of which mention is made in our annals.' 



Again Commerell says : ' This plant is a kind of wild cabbage, that may be cut 

 four or six times in the year it is sown ; each cut is as plentiful as trefoil or 

 lucerne ; we leave it afterwards for the winter. About the month of February it 

 shoots up, and the leaves of it may be cut ; but in the month of April it begins to grow 

 up, send off stalks, and bears its seed, which may be gathered in June. The first year 

 this wild cabbage does not send stalks ; its leaves appear to rise out of the ground, and 

 thus it may be cut like grass ; it may also be dried for hay. Its leaves extend to 10, 1 2, 

 and 15 inches in length and 6 to 8 broad, which have not the bitter and herbaceous 

 taste of other cabbages. It is a pulse very agreeable for man during the whole year, 

 and a fodder equally as good as plentiful for all kinds of cattle. The milk of cows 

 does not acquire a bad taste, nor do the cows get tired of it. 



' This plant bears more and larger sized seed than turnips or cole, and the oil which 

 I have extracted from it cold is very superior as food for man to that from poppy or 

 cole, and is equal to the common oil of olives, in the opinion of good judges. I give the 

 name of the mowing cabbage to this plant. If you will make a trial of it,' he adds to 

 Dr. Lettsom, 'you will have every reason to be satisfied, for this cabbage yields ono 



