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HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



or French Flanders. It is about ninety miles long, and sixty broad, and abounds with 

 towns and villages. 



430. The landed property of Flanders is not in large estates : very few amount to 

 2000 acres. It is generally freehold, or the property of religious or civil corporations. 

 When the proprietor does not cultivate his own lands, which, however, is most frequently 

 the case, he lets it on leases; generally of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years indurance, 

 at a fixed money rent, and sometimes a corn and money rent combined. The occupier is 

 bound to live on the premises, pay taxes, effect repairs, preserve timber, not to sublet 

 without a written agreement ; and to give the usual accommodations to an incoming 

 tenant at the end of the lease. Leases of fourteen or twenty-one years are most com- 

 mon : there are scarcely any lands held from year to year, or on the metayer system. 

 Estates are every where enclosed with hedges, and the fields generally small. 



431. Farmeries are convenient, and generally more ample in proportion to the exten- 

 of the farm than in England. On the larger farms a distillery, oil mill, and sometimes 

 a flour mill, are added to the usual accommodations. The buildings on a farm of 

 150 acres of strong soil, enumerated by RadclifF, are : 1. The farm house, with an arched 

 cellar used as a dairy, an apartment for churning, with an adjoining one for a horse 

 wheel to turn the churning machinery. 2. A small building for the use of extra laborers, 

 with a fire-place for cooking. 3. The grange or great barn, 130 feet long, by 35 feet 

 wide. The ground floor of this structure, besides accommodating by its divisions all the 

 horses and cows of the farm in comfortable stables, and furnishing two threshing floors 

 for the flail, is sufficient also for a considerable dep6t of corn in the sheaf, in two ex- 

 tensive compartments to the height of twelve feet, at which elevation an open floor of 

 joists, supported by wooden pillars, is extended over the entire area of the barn, and is re- 

 peated at every five feet in height, to the top. Each floor is braced from the pillars, and 

 not only forms a connection of strength throughout the whole, but separates at the same 

 time, without much loss of space, the different layers of corn, securing them from damage, 

 by taking oflTthe pressure of the great mass. 4. A house for farming implements, with 

 granary over, and piggery behind. In the centre is the dunghill ; the bottom of which 

 is rendered impervious to moisture. 



432. A plan of a Flemish farmery, is given by Sir John Sinclair, as suited to a farm 

 of 300 acres : it is executed with great solidity and a due attention to salubrity, being 

 vaulted and well aired. Sir John mentions, that he saw in some places, " a mode of 

 making floors by small brick arches, from one beam to the other instead of using deals, 

 and then making the floor of bricks," a mode now generally adopted in British manu- 

 factories ; the beams which serve as abutments being of cast iron, tied together with 

 transverse wrought iron rods, 



433. The accommodations of this farmery {fg. 60.) are, 



(1) The vestibule, or entrance of the farm-house. 



('2) The hall. 



(3, 4, and 5) Closets. 



(6) Sheds destined for different purposes, but more espe- 

 cially for elevating or letting down grain from the granaries, by 

 machinery. 



(7) Kitchen. 



(8) Washing-house. 



(9) Chamber for female servants. 



(10) Hall. 

 Ill and 12) Closets. 



(13) Necessaries. 



(14) Room for the gardener, 



(15) Shed for fuel, 

 lie) Kitchen garden. 



(17) Hoggery. 



(18) Poultry.yard. 



(19 and 20) Stables for cows and calves. 

 (21) Necessaries for the servants, connected wi(h the cis- 

 terns, 



(22 and 2.'5) Sheep folds. 



(24 and 251 Sheds for carte. 



(26) Bam for the flax. 



(27) Area. 



(28) Flax barn. 



(29 and ,?0) Sheep-houses. 



(31 and 32) Stables for the horses and foals. 



(33, 34, 35, and 36) Places for the hogs 



(37 and 38) Cisterns destined to receive the urine of the 

 cattle. 



(39} Well. 



(401 Dung-pit, concave in the middle. 



(41) Pool serving to receive the super-abundant waters of 

 the dung.pit, the weedings of the garden, &c. 



(42J Reservoirs to receive the waters of the farm-yard, 



(43) Entrance gateway, with dove-cote over. 



(44) Small trenches, or gutters. 



(45) Sheds destined for clover, cut green in summer, or'drv 

 in winter. 



(46) Cistern for the wzish-houses. 



(47) Situations of the com stacks, in years of abundance. 



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