SOILS SUITABLE PEEP AKATIOtf, ETC. 331 



stagnant water is as injurious to it as to other cultivated 

 plants. This must be carefully provided against, and the 

 land got into good tilth by cross ploughing, rolling, and 

 harrowing, as may be considered advisable. The manure 

 may be applied before the winter ploughing, or in the 

 spring,, as may be most convenient to the farmer, care 

 being taken that, if applied in the spring, it be in a well- 

 fermented state, so as to mix readily with the soil, and 

 furnish a good supply of food to the young plants in an 

 assimilable condition. If the manure be applied before 

 the winter ploughing, it may be used in a fresh state ; in 

 that case, a proportionably larger quantity must be used. 

 For this purpose nothing is so good as farmyard dung, of 

 which a liberal dressing should be given say from 15 to 

 25 tons of fresh dung in the autumn, with a top-dressing 

 at the time of sowing of from 2 to 5 cwts. of Peruvian 

 guano ; or from 10 to 15 tons of well-rotted dung in the 

 spring, with the same proportions of Peruvian guano, 

 mixed and distributed in the manner described at pages 

 302 and 420, vol. i. 



The same care should be taken in cleaning the land 

 intended for hemp as in preparing for the flax crop. 

 Hemp, however, has this advantage, that if the land 

 be clean at the time of sowing, the growth of the 

 young plants is so rapid that they smother the weeds, 

 and leave the land quite free from them ; whereas the flax, 

 a more delicate plant in every respect, has a continued 

 struggle with them for existence, and always leaves the 

 land more or less foul. This tendency of the hemp to 

 keep undisturbed possession of the ground, necessitates its 

 being sown by itself. Neither seeds nor any other crop 

 can be sown with it, as is done so commonly with flax. 

 In Russia, where hemp is largely cultivated as a field crop, 

 it is a practice in some districts to grow cabbages with 

 it in alternate rows (see page 388, vol. i.), the hemp being 



