80 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



being added, and boiled again, the lime was disengaged ; the saftcharine matter being then freed from the 

 liquor, granulated, and was ready for the refiner. The pulp has been found to yield, upon distillation, 

 a wholesome spirit, very inferior, but not very unlike to geneva. It has been proved excellent as a 

 manure, but not valuable as food for cattle, beyond the first or second day from the press. The foregoing 

 process required but a fortnight to complete it. 



472. Flax is cultivated with the utmost care. The field intended for this crop, after 

 two or three ploughings and harrowings, is again ploughed, commencing in the centre, 

 and ploughed round and round to the circumference, so as to leave it without any 

 furrow. The heavy roller is drawn across the ploughing by three horses ; the liquid 

 manure is then spread equally over the entire surface, and when well harrowed in by 

 eight or nine strokes of the harrow, the seed is sown, which is also harrowed in by 

 a light harrow, with wooden pins of less than three inches; and the surface, to conclude 

 the operation, is again carefully rolled. Nothing can exceed the smoothness and culti- 

 vated appearance of fields thus accurately prepared. 



473. The manure universally used for the Jlax crop, demands particular notice : it is 

 termed liquid manure, and consists of the urine of cattle, in which rape-cake has been 

 dissolved, and in which the vidanges conveyed from the privies of the adjoining towns 

 and villages, have also been blended. This manure is gradually collected in subter- 

 raneous vaults of brick-work, at the verge of the farm next to the main road. Those 

 receptacles are generally forty feet long, by fourteen wide, and seven or eight feet deep, 

 and in some cases are contrived with the crown of the arch so much l)elow the surface of 

 the ground, as to admit the plough to work over it. An aperture is left in the side, 

 through which the manure is received from the cart by means of a shoot or trough, and 

 at one end an opening is left to bring it up again, by means of a temporary pump, which 

 delivers it either into carts or tonneaus. 



474. The liquid is carried to the Jteld in sheets or barrels, according to the distance. 

 Where the cart plies, the manure is carried in a great sheet called a voile, closed at the 

 corners by running strings, and secured to the four uprights of the carts : two men, 

 standing one on each side of the cart, scatter it with hollow shovels upon the rolled 

 ground ; or where the tonneaus are made use of, each is carried by two men with poles, 

 and set down at equal intervals across the field in the line of the rolling. There are two 

 sets of vessels, which enable the men, who deposit the loaded ones, to bring back the 

 others empty. One man to each vessel, with a scoop, or rather a kind of bowl with a 

 long handle, spreads the manure, so as to cover a certain space ; and thus, by preserving 

 the intervals correctly, they can precisely gauge the quantity for a given extent of surface. 

 For the flax crop they are profuse ; and of this liquid mixture, in this part of the coun- 

 try, they usually allow at the rate of 2480 gallons, beer measure, to the English 

 acre. 



475. S}mrry {Spergula arvensis) {Jig. 63. ) is cultivated 

 on the poorest soils. It is so quick of growth and short of 

 duration, that it is often made to take an intermediate 

 place between the harvest and the spring sowing, without 

 any strict adherence to the regularity of succession. It 

 is sown sometimes in the spring, but in general in the au- 

 tumn, immediately after harvesting the corn crops. One 

 light ploughing is sufficient ; and as the grain is very 

 small, it is but very lightly covered. About twenty-four 

 pounds of seed to the acre is the usual quantity. Its growth 

 is so rapid that in five or six weeks it acquires its full 

 height, which seldom exceeds twelve or fourteen inches. 

 The crop is of course a light one, but is considered of great 

 value, both as supplying a certain quantum of provender 

 at very little cost, and as being the best food for milch cowl^to improve the quality 

 of the butter. It lasts till the frost sets in, and is usually fed off by milch cows tethered 

 on it, but is sometimes cut and carried to the stalls. 



476. Where spurry is sown in spring the crop is occasionally made into hay ; but fi'om 

 the watery nature of the plant, it shrinks very much in bulk, and upon the whole, is much 

 more advantageously consumed in the other manner. It is indigenous in Flanders ; and, 

 except when cultivated, is looked on as a weed, as in this country. 



477. The hop is cultivated on good soils, and generally after wheat. The land being 

 four times ploughed, the plants are put in in the month of May, in rows with intervals 

 of six feet, and at six feet distance in the row. In the month of October they raise the 

 earth round each plant, in little mounds about two feet and a half high, for the purpose 

 of encouraging a number of shoots, and of preserving them from the frost. When all 

 harsh weather has disappeared, about the beginning of April in the second year, they 

 level those little heaps, and take away all superfluous shoots at the root, leaving but 

 four or five of the strongest. They then spread over the entire surface, at the rate of 

 twelve carts of ISOOlbs. each, by the English acre, of dung, either of cows, or of cows 



