Continental Farmimj. 
143 
are all paved. About Bruges the soil improves ; and the warp 
land is drier ; the pasture is therefore of better quality, which 
continues all the way to Tirlemont, where the warp and meadow 
land decrease, and the light sandy soil gradually changes to a good 
sandy loam, which is all cultivated in a husbandlike manner, 
producing fair crops of peas, potatoes, lucerne, clover, flax, rye 
(the 'staple crop), wheat, and some barley : the whole is enclosed 
with hedges, with timber growing therein, to the damage of the 
crops, but there is no waste land : the roads are good ; there are 
occasional forests, which appear to be well managed. 
From Tirlemont to Cologne I travelled by night, was therefore 
but imperfectly able to see the country ; however, as far as 
observable, the cultivation appeared to be good and the country 
pretty. About Cologne is a beautiful district, well farmed, with 
no waste land about fence-sides, or corners of fields growing 
rubbish. 
After leaving Cologne on our way to Dusseldorf we passed 
over a pretty district, of light red sandy soil, with some good- 
sized farmsteads on it, all in tillnge except some water-meadows, 
which are well managed. This part is well farmed as far as the 
cleanliness of the crops goes, but the crops were lighter than 
they ought to be on such soil. 
We then passed through some poor hungry soil adjoining a 
barren heath, where the farming was clean, but the crops very 
light. This was succeeded by a better district, where the farms 
were generally large, to many of which were attached large distil- 
leries. Although the facilities appeared good for producing 
heavy crops, yet they were light. 
The whole of these districts are open field, which, along with 
the severity of the winter, prevents sheep from being brought 
into use for the development of the powers of this light dry 
soil. If the whole was enclosed, and cheap shelter sheds built 
with grated floors for the sheep during the severity of the 
winter, and green crops grown for summer and winter feeding of 
sheep on the land whenever the weather would permit, and the 
house-made sheep-manure drilled with the green crops together 
with bones and guano, I feel convinced there would be more 
than double the produce obtained from the soil. The industry 
displayed in keeping the land clean is indeed great ; the farmers 
here do not allow weeds to enter into competition with their crops ; 
a war of extirpation bids fair to free the land of the nuisance. 
The crops grown are rye as the staple crop, wheat and rye 
mixed, barley, oats, peas, beans, rapeseed, tares, clover, trifolium 
{incarnatuni), turnips, beet, potatoes. About one-third seemed 
to be pulse and green crops, and two-thirds white crops, which 
were all light, 
I observed about twenty-five cubic yards of farmyard dung 
