Farming of Lincolnshire. 



401 



Messrs. Smith, Topham, Kirkham, Booth, Kin^, Watson, &c., 

 are well known to the graziers of Lincoln, Leicester, and other 

 counties. 



8. The comparative merits of Rape and Turnips on Peaty Land, 

 and the best mode of Growing and Feeding off Rape. 



Rape (^Brassica Napus, L.) is a biennial plant of the turnip 

 kind, but with a woody spindle-shaped root unfit to be eaten 

 except when young, and is cultivated both for its seed for oil and 

 as food for live stock. In the fens it is denominated coleseed, 

 probably a corruption of " colza," although the French and 

 Flemish colza differs from rape in its greater affinity to the cab- 

 bage, its rougher leaves, and greater hardiness. The leaves and 

 brittle stems of rape are probably unsurpassed by any other vege- 

 table as a green food for sheep, though certainly yielding on most 

 soils a less bulk of produce than the turnip. Few crops are less 

 liable to failure in consequence of the variations of weather, or 

 the attacks of insects, and it is therefore no wonder that it should 

 be extensively grown where the land is suitable. It requires a 

 deep and rich soil, being partial to an alluvial clay, but thrives 

 with greatest luxuriance upon peaty land. These considerations 

 would alone be sufficient to explain the universality of rape 

 throughout the fens, but a remark on the unfitness for peat soils 

 of the crop which it displaces will at once demonstrate the wisdom 

 of the choice. Turnips are rarely of good quality on peaty land ; 

 they are produced either very large or " fuzzy," or very close, 

 ^'rindy," hard, and stunted, owing to the plants running to fangs 

 instead of bulbs. On such land, therefore, rape excels the 

 turnip both in quantity and quality ; experience proving that here 

 the one finds every condition favourable to its growth, while the 

 other meets with influences which check or deteriorate it. 



The cultivation of the land for coleseed resembles that for 

 roots. On the light black land, which will not bear ridging, the 

 seed is drilled on the flat in rows 12 to 16 inches apart; but, 

 generally speaking, ridge culture is by far the better system. The 

 fattening and nutritious properties of the plant are in proportion 

 to the exuberance of its growth, hence are required a good heart 

 in the soil and plenty of room above ground ; and the best mode 

 of culture will be to deposit 10 to 14 two-horse cart loads of 

 good yard-manure in ridges 25 inches distant from each other. 

 About 2 quarts per acre of seed, with 10 bushels of bone-dust, 

 must be drilled in the months of June or July, though sowing is 

 done in the fens at any time between March and August (both 

 inclusive), so as to provide a succession of green forage crops for 

 the sheep. A larger amount of seed is requisite when the land 

 is poor and not so certain of a crop, but the plants ought at all 



VOL. XII. 2 D 



