SECRETARY'S REPORT. 319 



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evenly spread. But it is often carried round in boats in a 

 solid form for sale, and carried upon the land in troughs, big 

 enough when filled, for two horses to draw, from which it is 

 spread by a wooden shovel or scoop. The results are said to 

 pay well, though it is rather expensive. 



All the liquid of the barnyard is saved with the most scru- 

 pulous care, and if these careful farmers cannot get enough, 

 they mix in night-soil, pigeon or sheep dung, and dilute it 

 with water. Ashes are brought extensively from Holland and 

 sold for manure, especially on clover and poor grass lands. 

 Most, of the Flemish are coal ashes, but these also are used 

 like others, but not thought so valuable. Wood ashes are 

 considered best, but they are scarce. 



It is hardly necessary to say that where manures are so care- 

 fully husbanded, the crops are kept perfectly clear of weeds. 

 I saw in no other country such pains taken to keep the land 

 free. Twitch grass is their great pest, as it is with us. They 

 pull it by hand, or try to kill it by ploughing and harrowing, 

 fallowing and cultivating crops that smother it, like buckwheat. 

 Flax is very carefully weeded, like other crops. 



Stall feeding, I should say, is very common, not quite 

 universal, but pretty near it, in some parts of Flanders. The 

 number of cattle a farmer keeps well is a pretty good criterion 

 of his prosperity, as by this means alone can he make the 

 largest possible amount of manure. This explains why we see 

 so large a proportion of fodder crops, like carrots, clover, pars- 

 nips. Cows are kept almost as much for the manure that can 

 be made by them, as for their milk. It might be said that we 

 have not so great a necessity for this extreme care in regard to 

 manures, that our population is less dense, our land cheaper 

 and our labor more expensive, but have we not yet much to 

 learn from them, or rather much to practice, for few of us 

 practice all that we already kn(?w. In all times and all coun- 

 tries manure is and has been the basis of success, and yet few 

 of us manage it as if any thing important depended on it. The 

 liquid manure which many a farmer in Massachusetts wastes 

 every year would, with decent care, more than pay his taxes. 



But here we are at Ostend, From there we crossed the 

 channel to Dover, and thence to London and to the north, to 

 Stratford upon Avon, Chatsworth, Edinburgh, the land of 



