314 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch- XXVI. 



that one frosty night may kill it : it is therefore seldom put into the 

 ground until the latter end of March, or the beginning of April, and we 

 have heard of a capital crop which was not sown until the 25th of May. 

 When sown thus late, it is, however, more subject to the attacks of the 

 black caterpillar and the fly. 



The harvest takes place about August, and the brown sort is reaped 

 and tied in sheaves in the same manner as wheat; but the white is laid in 

 "gavels" or handfuls upon the stubble, and both are thrashed out upon 

 cloths in the field, in the same mode as cole-seed. Care should also be 

 taken to watch the first ripening of the pods, and then the crop should be 

 cut without delay. 



The average produce may be estimated, upon good land, at 28 bushels 

 per acre ; but rich soils not unfrequently grow as much as five or six 

 quarters, and the cwt. of grain yields proportionably more oil than that of 

 cole. The cake made from the expression of the oil is said to have a 

 slightly purgative quality * ; wherefore, though it may be in that respect 

 in many instances very wholesome, yet it should be cautiously given to 

 cattle, and is therefore usually ground and sprinkled upon their chaff. 



POPPY, 



Although little known in England, where it is only cultivated in physic- 

 gardens for the heads, is yet extensively grown in Flanders for the pro- 

 duction of the oil expressed from its seeds, which is of a quality so 

 superior to that of any other kind yielded by our common field crops, that, 

 when cold-drawn, it is very generally used throughout the Continent as 

 salad oil ; and when burned in lamps, it affords a brilliant light peculiarly 

 free from smoke t : the cake is also extremely nutritive. It may therefore 

 be worthy of attention to those possessed of those deep sandy loams to 

 which it is adapted, to whom some account of its culture, as stated by 

 MessieursRadcliff and Von Thaer, may not prove wholly uninteresting. 



The former states — " that the crop is generally taken after rape, for 

 which the ground has been plentifully manured, and for which the ' oillette,' 

 as it is there called, receives in the ensuing year a dressing not less abun- 

 dant. The land which has been so highly cultivated, and enriched for the 

 crop of rape, is in such good tilth upon pulling the rape-stalk, that two 

 deep ploughings are sufficient to prepare it for the reception of the seed. 

 Upon the first ploughing, harrowed flat, liquid manure is spread, at the 

 rate of about 3500 gallons to the English acre; and this being ploughed 

 in, in sets of ten feet, the seed is sown at the rate of one gallon to the acre, 

 being afterwards lightly covered by shovelling the furrows. 



" The harvesting is performed in a particular manner, and requires a great 

 number of hands. The labourers work in a row, and sheets are laid along 

 the line of the standing crop, upon which, bending the plants gently for- 

 ward, thev shake out the seed. When it ceases to fall from the capsules, 

 that row of plants is pulled up, and placed upright in small sheaves, in 

 the same or an adjoining field, in order to ripen such as refused to yield 

 their seed at the first operation, and in two or three days the operation is 



* Von Thaer, Prin. Rais. d' Agric. 2nde edit. torn. iv. p. 27 ] . 



t The oil, when expressed, should remain for the space of five or six weeks before it 

 is used, that it may deposit its sediment. It should then be poured into another vessel, 

 which shouUi not be perfectly closed ; nor should the oil be immediately used, as it con- 

 tinues to improve for a considerable length of time. 



When mixed with a small quantity of superfine olive oil, the peculiar taste of that oil 

 is communicated to itj and it corrects rancidity. 



