78 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



fresh, as, if kept, it would turn sour sooner than bread made of barley, rye, or wheaten 

 flour. Its blossom is considered to afford the best food for bees. If cut green, it yields 

 good forage, and if ploughed in when in flower, it is thought one of the best vegetable 

 manures in use. It is also said to be used in distillation ; but this is not generally ad- 

 mitted to be the case. 



457. Rape, colza, colsat, or cole seed, (not the brassica napus of Linnaeus, but the 

 B. campest7-is of DecandoUe, and which he thinks a distinct species,) is considered an 

 important article of Flemish agriculture. It is sometimes sown broad-cast, but the 

 general and approved method is, by transplanting, which they allege, and apparently 

 with great justice, to have many advantages : one is, that the seed-bed occupies but a 

 small space, whilst the land which is to carry the general crop is bearing corn. By 

 having the plants growing, they have time to harvest their corn, to plough and manure 

 the stubble intended for the rape, which they put in with the dibble, or the plough, from 

 the latter end of September to the second week of November, without apprehending 

 any miscarriage. 



458. The seed-bed is sown in August, and even to the middle of September. In October, or sooner, 

 the stubble is ploughed over, manured, and ploughed again. The plants are dibbled in the seams of the 

 ploughing, (each furrow slice being twelve inches broad,) and are set out at twelve inche&^istance in the 

 rows. Instead of dibbling upon the second ploughing, in many cases they lay the plants at the proper 

 distances across the furrow, and as the plough goes forward, the roots are covered, and a woman follows 

 to set them a little up, and to give them a firmness in the ground where necessary. Immediately after 

 the frost, and again in the month of April, the intervals are weeded and hand-hoed, and the earth drawn 

 up to the plants, which is the last operation till the harvest. It is pulled rather green, but ripens in the 

 stack ; it is threshed without any particular management ; but the application of the haulm, or straw, 

 is a matter of new and profitable discovery : it is burned for ashes, as manure, which are found to be so 

 highly valuable beyond all other sorts which have been tried, that they bear a price as three to one above 

 the other kinds, and it is considered, that upon clover, a dressing of one-third less of these is amply 

 sufficient. 



459. The seed is soldfor crushing ; or, as is frequently the case, crushed by the farmer 

 himself; an oil mill being a very common appendage to a farmery. 



460. The oilette or poppy (Papaver somniferum), is cultivated in some parts, and 

 yields a very fine oil ; in many instances, of so good a quality, as to be used for salad 

 oil. The seed, requires a rich, and well manured soil. The crop is generally taken 

 after rape, for which the ground has been plentifully manured; and for the oilettes it 

 receives a dressing not less abundant. The seed is sown at the rate of one gallon to the 

 English acre, and is lightly covered by shovelling the furrows. The average produce 

 is about thirty Winchester bushels to the English acre. The seed is not so productive as 

 rape, in point of quantity, but exceeds it in price, both as grain and as oil, by at least 

 one-sixth. The measure of oil produced from rape, is as one to four of the seed ; that 

 produced from the seed of the oilettes, is as one to five. 



461. Poppy seed is sown both in spring and autumn, but the latter is considered the best season ; great 

 attention is given to the pulverisation of the soil, by frequently harrowing, and (if the weather and state 

 of the soil permit,) sufficient rolling to reduce all the clods. 



462. The harvesting of the poppy is performed in a particular manner, and requires a great number of 

 hands. The laborers work in a row, and sheets are laid along the line of the standing crop, upon which, 

 bending the plants gently forward, they shake out the seed. When it ceases to fall from the capsules, 

 that row of the 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. 

 The sheets are then again drawn forward to the standing crop, and the same pro- 

 cess is repeated, till all the plants be shaken, pulled up, and removed. In two or 

 three days, if the weather has been fine, the sheets are placed before the rows of 

 the sheaves, which are shaken upon them, as the plants were before ; if any seed 

 remain, it is extracted in the barn by the flail ; and if the weather be unpromising, 

 the plants are not left in the field after the first operation, but are placed at once 

 under some cover to ripen, and yield the remainder of their seed, either by being 

 threshed or shaken. 



463. The red clover is an important and frequent article in the 

 Flemish rotations. The quantity of seed sown does not exceed six 

 pounds one quarter to the English acre. The soil is ploughed deep 

 and well prepared, and the crop kept very clear of weeds. Their 

 great attention to prevent weeds, is marked by the perseverance prac- 

 tised to get rid of one, which occasionally infests the clover crop, 

 and is indeed most diflScult to be exterminated. The orobanche or 

 broom rape ( Orobanche major) (Jig. 62.) is a parasitical plant, attaching 

 itself to the pea tribe, which, in land where clover has been too fre- 

 quently sown, stations itself at its root, and if suffered to arrive at its 

 wonted vigor, will spread and destroy an entire crop. The farmer 

 considers the mischief half done, if this dangerous plant be permitted 

 to appear above the surface; and he takes the precaution to inspect 

 his clover in the early spring. The moment the orobanche establishes 

 itself at the root, the stem and leaf of the clover, deprived of their 

 circulating juices, faden to a sickly hue, which the farmer recognises, 

 and, with true Flemish industry, roots up, and destroys the latent 

 enemy. If this be done in time, and with great care, the crop is saved ; 

 if not, the infected soil refuses to yield clover again for many years. 



