54 



On the Agriculture of the Netherlands. 



perience and observation alone have suggested and confirmed. 

 They may also be useful in suggesting to those who would imitate 

 any particular system of husbandry the modifications which are 

 necessary, where the soil, climate, and other circumstances are 

 different. 



The advantages of stirring the soil to a considerable depth by 

 trenching and deep ploughing, which only now begin to be gene- 

 rally appreciated in England, and the intimate union of the 

 manure with every portion of the soil, have long been practically 

 acknowledged by the farmers in the Netherlands. The quality 

 and value of flax, of all their crops the most profitable, has been 

 found by experience to depend chiefly on the care with which the 

 soil is loosened, and the manure intimately incorporated with it. 

 Great attention is paid to ploughing and cross ploughing. The 

 harrows are used much more frequently than with us, and the 

 surface is laid level and thoroughly pulverised to receive the 

 seed. The stitches, where there are any, are not generally in a 

 convex form, but have a flat surface ; and the spade deepens the 

 intervals to twice the depth of a common furrow. The earth dug 

 out is spread evenly over the seed which has been previously 

 sown, and is pulverised by the harrows or by a flat instrument 

 called a traineau, which is drawn over it, and breaks all the clods, 

 while it compresses and levels the surface. 



The rounded form of the stitches in England throws the water 

 into the interfurrows, but at the same time tends to soak the 

 lower portions on each side in wet, if the subsoil is at all retentive 

 of moisture ; hence the plants which grow there are often sickly 

 and unproductive. In Flanders, even in the most tenacious soils, 

 this rounded form is unnecessary ; for there is an open drain be- 

 tween every two stitches. The soil, having been well pulverised, 

 allows the superfluous water to sink, and it runs slowly into the 

 deepened furrows, without injuring the plants at the edge of the 

 stitch. When- the crop is reaped, the edges of the stitch are 

 broken down and drawn into the deepened furrow by means of 

 a large hoe or hack, and the plough completes the filling up 

 and lays the land level again. When next the stitches are made, 

 care is taken that the intervals are a foot to one side or other of 

 the lines where they were before, and again dug out 8 or 9 

 inches below the bottom of the furrows. Thus in a few years 

 the whole field will have been dug 16 or 18 inches deep, and 

 the soil and subsoil, to that depth, completely incorporated and 

 enriched with manure ; for, after the seed is sown, the tank 

 liquor is invariably poured over the surface, or into the intervals 

 before they are deepened, that it may soak in and mix with the 

 earth which is about to be spread ov^er the seed. Although this 

 is a longer process than that of trenching the whole ground with 



