RAPE AND CABBAGE. I49 



stock where it has grown, the soil will not be 

 depleted of its fertility where rape has been thus 

 grown and pastured. 



Rape is an annual. It is of several varieties. 

 Some of these mature their seeds the same year that 

 they are sown. Such are the varieties that are sown 

 to provide food for certain birds and also to furnish 

 oil. But sometimes the winter varieties are used 

 to furnish oil. The summer varieties are not of 

 much value for forage, since the proportion of leaf 

 growth upon them is small, the season for pasturing 

 them is brief, as the stems which shoot upward to 

 sustain the seed pods when formed soon become so 

 woody that live stock do not relish them. The 

 varieties that are really valuable for forage do not 

 mature seed the same year that they are sown, and 

 of these the Dwarf Essex is probably the best. 

 Indeed, it is about the only kind that has heretofore 

 been thought worthy of cultivation in this country. 



Distribution. — The Dwarf Essex rape can be 

 grown with more or less success in nearly all the 

 arable portions of the United States and Canada, 

 providing due attention is given to the requisite 

 variations as to the time and also as to the method of 

 sowing it in the various states and provinces. It is 

 what may be termed a cool weather plant, hence in 

 growing it the best results relatively may be looked 

 for in the states which extend northward to the 

 Canadian boundary. And in the tier of states that 

 lie immediately to the south of these border states, 

 fairly good crops may be grown. But the adapt- 

 ability of the republic to rape production would seem 

 to lessen with the increase in distance from the 

 northern boundary line, and yet there is perhaps no 



