182 



BRA 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL 



BRA 



corn, and on ditch-banks. When it is cultivated for feeding 

 cattle, it should be sown about the middle of June. 

 The ground should be prepared in the same manner as 

 for Turnips ; the quantity of seeds for an acre of land is 

 from six to eight pounds, and as the price of the seeds is 

 not great, it is better to allow eight pounds ; for if the plants 

 are too close in any part, they may be easily thinned when 

 the ground is hoed. When the plants have put out six leaves, 

 they will be fit to hoe, which must be performed in the same 

 manner as is practised for Turnips, with this difference only, 

 of leaving these much nearer together ; foras they have fibrous 

 roots and slender stalks, they do not require near so much 

 room. They should be hoed a second time, five or six weeks 

 after the first, which, if well performed in dry weather, will 

 entirely destroy the weeds, and they will require no further 

 culture. By the middle of November these will be grown 

 large enough for feeding, when, if there is a scarcity of fod- 

 der, this may be either cut or fed down ; but where there is 

 not an immediate want of food, it had better be kept as a 

 reserve for hard weather, or spring seed, when there may be 

 a scarcity of other green food. If the heads are cut off, and 

 the stalks left in the ground, they will shoot again early in the 

 spring, and produce a good second crop in April, which may 

 be either fed off, or permitted to run to seed, as is the prac- 

 tice where this is cultivated for the seeds : but if the first 

 is fed down, there should be care taken that the cattle do 

 not destroy their stems, or pull them out of the ground. As 

 this plant is so hardy as not to be destroyed by frost, it is of 

 great service in hard winters for feeding ewes ; for when the 

 ground is so hard frozen that Turnips cannot be taken up, 

 these plants may be cut off for a constant supply. In several 

 places an acre of land, sown with this seed, has produced as 

 much food as almost two acres of Turnips ; and this will 

 afford late food, after the Turnips are run to seed : one acre 

 will produce as much as, at a moderate computation, will 

 sell for five pounds, clear of charges. Partridges, pheasants, 

 turkeys, and most other fowls, are very fond of this plant ; 

 so that wherever it is cultivated, if there are any birds in 

 the neighbourhood, they will constantly lie among these 

 plants. The seeds are sown in gardens for winter and spring 

 salads, as it is one of the small salad herbs. Cole or Rape 

 is sometimes sown on fallow like Turnips, sometimes on the 

 stubble of an arable crop : it requires good land ; very stiff 

 clay does not suit it, and poor land is wholly unfit ; but on 

 the sward of old grazing grounds, on fen and marshlands, it 

 generally turns out the most profitable crop for seed, either 

 immediately, or after Flax. On old pastures the turf is pared 

 and burnt, and the ashes are spread generally with a mixture 

 of lime. The seed is sown in July, early enough to get a 

 strong leaf, and late enough to prevent its running up to 

 stem the first autumn ; the quantity of one gallon to an acre, 

 generally on one ploughing, and brushed in with a thorn- 

 harrow. The crop is seldom hoed or weeded. The vacant 

 patches are filled up in October with plants from those parts 

 which are over-stocked ; this work is done by women : the 

 plants seldom fail, but they ripen later than the others. 

 When a large piece fails, the plough is sometimes used in 

 transplanting ; the expense, four shillings an acre ; namely, 

 eight women at sixpence a day. In the common method of 

 culture, the whole tribe of biennial weeds have time to esta- 

 blish themselves before winter ; and the crop not being reaped 

 until July or August following, they have time to mature and 

 shed their seed. The grasses and strong-rooted weeds of 

 every kind, gain possession of the soil ; which also gets out 

 of tilth, by lying so long without ploughing. One ploughing 

 In autumn would extirpate the biennial weeds, check the 



grasses andstrong-rooted weeds,and preserve the soil in tillage. 

 Draw from the first land sufficient plants for the last land, aud 

 bury the roots in a vacant place until wanted. Plough the first 

 land, burying the weeds and the refuse Rape, and stock it at the 

 same time with plants drawn from the second land. The first 

 land being finished, supply the second with plants from the 

 third, and so on, furnishing the last land with the plants 

 in reserve. Thus the entire piece would have prime plants, 

 equal in strength and regular in distance ; the soil would be 

 evenly occupied, and the crop would ripen equally ; the hoe, 

 and even the horse-hoe, might be used between the rows ; and 

 the foulest crop which farmers have to deal with, might, at a 

 small expense, be rendered a fallow crop of the first estima- 

 tion. In this management, the first or seed ploughing ought 

 to be very shallow across the ridges ; and the second or 

 transplanting ploughing should be across the first ; gathering 

 up the ridges dry against winter. A manured fallow, a rich 

 Wheat stubble, or other land sufficiently clean and in heart, 

 might be planted in a similar manner ; raising plants for this 

 purpose in a detached seed-bed. Rape is generally ripe in 

 July, and is considered as fit for cutting when the fowardest 

 of the seed has begun to turn black. It is cut with sickles, 

 and laid in broad thin heaps upon the tops of the stubble, 

 which is generally cut about a foot high, or as high as the lower 

 branches will allow. It lies until the sap is pretty well dried 

 out of the greenest pods, and the ripest are ready to open, and 

 is commonly threshed in the field upon a cloth. It would be 

 far better, however, to bind, shock, and carry it into the barn, 

 threshing it when markets and conveniency require. When 

 Rape succeeds Flax, the ground is cleared of weeds as soon 

 as convenient : it is then ploughed four or five inches deep, 

 and from half a peck to a peck of seed, according to the 

 richness of the soil, is sown from a week before to a week 

 after Michaelmas ; it is usually well harrowed in, and if it 

 grows into rough leaf before winter, it is considered as 

 better than growing more, which would place it in danger 

 of being destroyed by frost ; no weeding takes place, and the 

 crop will be ready about the middle of July. It is reaped, 

 and laid on the ground in single handfuls, and when dry, it 

 is carried to the threshing-floor, on sledges coveredwith sail- 

 cloth. The crop is from three to seven quarters on an acre. 

 The seed lost in reaping and getting in, produces a crop of 

 green food for sheep, which is fed off early enough to prepare 

 the ground forasecond cropof Flax. This straw is sold at two 

 shillings an acre, to persons who burn it on the spot for the 

 ashes. For immediate profit, and on old pastures broken 

 up, Rape or Cole may be thus cultivated for seed ; but on 

 stubbles or fallows it answers better to feed it off with sheep, 

 (the fat ones going over it once, and afterwards the lean or 

 store sheep following,) in the autumn, but particularly in the 

 spring, when there is frequently a scarcity of green food : 

 this is an excellent preparation for either Wheat or Barley. 

 It succeeds best on a deep soil, with good manure, and deep 

 ploughing, and does best after Beans, Barley, Oats, orWheat ; 

 it is sometimes sown afterTurmps orCabbages, which cannot 

 be a right practice. When sown on a fallow, the land should 

 be ploughed up soon after Christmas, and lie till the end of 

 March ; it should then be ploughed a second time, harrowed 

 down, and a coat of manure laid on, as for Turnips ; when 

 this is spread, the land should be crop-ploughed, and got 

 into fine tilth by the end of June. The first rain after this, 

 the seed should be sown, from two to four quarts an acre, 

 according to circumstances, in the same manner with Tur-t 

 nips, and the land be lightly harrowed and rolled : the croji 

 should be hoed, as above directed, and the vacant place* 

 filled up in October : many persons omit the hoeing entirely. 



