180 [Assembly 



more alluvial soil. A more powerful sun, too, on the continent, 

 or large portion of it, drys its soil, much of it of a sandy loam, 

 sooner and fits it earlier for tillage. Swamps, morasses and stiff 

 clays they sometimes improve by both open and underdrains 

 when there is a prospect of their being remunerated in a reason- 

 able time for the outlay. 



Mr. Colman states that some of the best farmers in Europe are 

 in Flanders, and where there is no regular English uunderdrain- 

 ing ; this is done by sub-soiling, with the spade and plough ; the 

 Flemish call it trenching — they go from twenty to twenty-three 

 inches deep ; they rely much on deep culture and keeping their 

 laud loose and friable so as to admit tlie water and air freely 

 through it, both of which they consider great fertilizers. Water, 

 they say, must not stand upon the surface of land, or underneath 

 near it ; when it is so great as to do this they convey it off by 

 open ditches or drains. In some places these are so large, and 

 yet so filled with water, that they serve to convey off their crops 

 in small boats, and bring back manure for their farms. The 

 Flemings manure very high, principally animal and vegetable 

 matter made on their premises ; they buy these too wherever 

 they can get them, and of every kind. If under-draining, ac- 

 cording to the English system, was profitable in Flanders, the 

 Flemings would be the first to perceive and enter into it. Their 

 agricultural knowledge appears to be derived generally from 

 practice and little from books; a few journals or periodicals on 

 farming are mostly the books they readj their science on the 

 subject appears to be collected from these, close observation and 

 daily practice. Colman says, an intelligent Flemish farmer has 

 in view from his tillage and crops " that which he can obtain with 

 the largest profit, the least expense and the smallest injury to the 

 land." The farms are small compared with most of ours- -from 

 six to one hundred acres kept clean, free from weeds and in the 

 most perfect order ; and as their chief implement is the spade, 

 the whole is like a garden and "executed with a neatness and 

 exactness the most particular and delightful to tlie eye." The 

 quantity of produce they get from these small farms, Mr. Col- 

 man says, is wonderful ; the most untiring industry and rigid 



