Book I. AGRICULTURE IN THE NETHERLANDS. 79 



471. The turnip is not in general cultivated as a main crop, but usually after rve or 

 rape, or some crop early removed. The turnip is sown broad-cast, thinned, and hoed with 

 great care ; but it affords a very scanty crop of green food, generally eat off with sheep in 

 September or later. The Swedish turnip is unknown ; and indeed the turnip husbandry, 

 as practised in Britain, cannot be considered as known in Flanders. 



472. The potato was introduced early in the seventeenth century, but attracted little 

 notice fill the beginning of the eighteenth. It is cultivated with great care. The ground 

 is trenched to the depth of nearly two feet ; and small square holes having been formed 

 at about eighteen inches from each other, a set is deposited in each, the hole nearly 

 filled with dung, and the earth thrown back over all. As the stalks rise they are earthed 

 up from the intervals, and manured with liquid manure ; and, as they continue to rise, 

 they receive a second earthing round each distinct plant, which, with a suitable weeding, 

 terminates the labour. Notwithstanding the distance between the plants, the whole surface 

 is closely covered by the luxuriance of the stems, and the return is abundant. If the 

 seed is large, it is cut ; if small, it is planted whole. In some parts of the Pays de Waes 

 they drop the potato sets in the furrow as the plough works, and cross-hoe them as they 

 rise ; but the method first mentioned is the most usual, and the produce in many cases 

 amounts to ten tons and one sixth, by the English acre. 



473. Potatoes are the chief food of the lower classes. They are prized in Flanders, 

 as being both wholesome and economical, and are considered there so essential to the 

 subsistence of a dense population, that at one time it was in serious contemplation to erect 

 a statue, or some other monument of the country's gratitude, to the person who first 

 introduced amongst them so valuable a production. They are also very much used 

 in feeding cattle and swine ; but, for this purpose, a particidar sort, much resembling our 

 ox-noble, or cattle potato, is made use of, and the produce is in Flanders, as with us, 

 considerably greater than that of the other kinds intended for the table. 



474. The carrot is a much valued crop in sandy loam. The culture is as follows : — 

 After harvest they give the land a moderate ploughing, which buries the stubble, and 

 clearing up the furrows to drain off the waters, they let the field lie so for the winter; 

 early in spring they give it a second ploughing very deep (from eleven to twelve inches), 

 and shortly after they harrow the surface well, and spread on it ninety-six carts of manure 

 to the bonnier, about twenty-one tons to the English acre. This manure is in general 

 half from the dunghill, and half of what is termed merrfe, or a collection from the privies, 

 which being ploughed in, and the surface made smooth, they sow the seed in the month 

 of April, broad-cast, and cover it with a harrow. The quantity sown is estimated at 

 eleven pounds to the bonnier, or about three pounds to the English acre. The average 

 produce, about one hundred and sixty bushels to the English acre. 



475. The carrot, as nutritive food both for cattle and horses, is a crop extremely valuable. In Flanders 

 it is generally substituted in the room of hay, and a moderate quantity of oats is also given. To each 

 horse, in twenty-four hours, a measure is allotted, which weighs about twenty-five pounds. This appears 

 a great quantity, but it makes hay-feeding altogether unnecessary. To each of the milch cows, a similar 

 measure is given, including the tops, and this is relied on for good butter, both as to quantity and 

 quality. 



476. The white beet, or mangold-wiirzel, is not in use in Flanders as food for cattle, but 

 was once cultivated very extensively for the production of sugar. At the time the 

 French government encouraged the manufacture of sugar from this root, experiments 

 were made on a considerable scale, and with great success, in the town of Bruges. The 

 machinery was unexpensive, and the remaining cost was merely that of the manual 

 labour, and a moderate consumption of fuel. The material itself came at a very low 

 rate, about ten shillings British by the ton ; and to this circumstance may be chiefly 

 attributed the cessation of the manufacture. Instead of encouraging the cultivator, the 

 government leaned altogether to the manufacturer, and made it imperative on every 

 farmer to give up a certain proportion of his land to this root, without securing to him 

 a fair remuneration. The consequence was, that the manufacturers, thus supported, 

 and taking advantage of the constrained supply, have in many instances been known to 

 refuse payment even of the carriage of a parcel, in other respects sent in gratuitously ; 

 and a consequence still more natural was, that the farmers, wherever they had the 

 opportunity of shaking off so profitless a crop, converted the space it occupied to better 

 purposes. 



477. To the manufacturer of beet root sugar the profit was ample. An equal quantity of sugar with that 

 of the West Indies, which at that time sold for five shillings a pound, could be produced on the spot from 

 mangold-wiirzel, at less than one shilling by the pound : and to such perfection had the sugar thus made 

 arrived, that the prefect, mayor, and some of the chief persons of Bruges, who were invited by a manu- 

 facturer to witness the result of his experiments, allowed the specimens which he produced to exceed 

 those of the foreign sugar. 



478. The process of manufacturing beet root sugar, as then in use, was simple. A cylindrical grater of 

 sheet-iron was made to work in a trough, prepared at one side in the hopper form, to receive the clean- 

 washed roots of the beet, which, by the rotation of this rough cylinder, were reduced to a pulp. This pulp, 

 when placed in bags of linen or hair-cloth, and submitted to a pressure resembling that of a cider press, 

 yielded its liquor in considerable quantity ; which being boiled and subjected to a proportion of lime, the 

 saccharine matter was precipitated. The liquor being then got rid of, a solution of sulphuric acid was 



