Report on the Agriculture of Belgium. 
21 
and, to a small extent, for horses ; too large a quantity given 
to horses produces colic, and although they fatten, they do not 
keep draught animals in good condition. Throughout Belgium 
we noticed that the grain crops were not harvested soon enough. 
Tliey are allowed to get dead ripe, so that a large quantity of 
grain is necessarily shed. In the month of September, the fields 
present a remarkably green aspect, due entirely to the sprouting 
of shed corn, and it was with difficulty that we understood 
the ordinary custom of the country to be identified, with so 
wasteful a practice. Wheat is very subject to be laid ; on sandy 
land the farmers say it is owing to the dryness of the summer 
climate, on heavier land it is attributed to other causes ; but the 
consequence is that its place in the rotation is frequently supplied 
either by rye, which ripens before the dry season has fairly 
set in, or by a mixture of rye and wheat, in which the rye 
is supposed to hold up its weaker brother. We were inclined 
to attribute the liability of wheat to be laid to the excess of 
nitrogen and the deficiency of phosphates in the manures 
habitually used in Belgium, combined with the exhausting nature 
of the rotation of crops. 
Rye followed by Turnips. — The preparation for rye is gene- 
rally the same as for wheat ; but we have seen the whole of 
the operations going on simultaneously in one field of two or 
three acres extent. The crop is harvested about the end of J uly, 
and yields about the same quantity per acre as wheat. The 
stubble is immediately ploughed to the depth of (3 or 7 inches, or 
hacked with a large hoe, and in a few days is harrowed and sown 
with turnips, which in good years will yield from 8 to 10 tons per 
acre. Of all modes of culture, that of turnips on the small Flemish 
farms seemed to us the most laborious. As soon as the seedlings 
appear, women are set to thin and weed them, and from this 
duty there is positively no respite until the roots get a tolerably 
large size ; for owing to the practice of sowing broadcast, the 
plants must be weeded and thinned over and over again. If 
there is any liquid manure to spare, this is the crop to which it 
is applied ; and the rude contrivances for its distribution entail 
an enormous loss of time and labour. Some small farmers do 
certainly possess a barrel, which, when mounted on a cart, and 
fitted with a tap, forms a rough manure-distributor, requiring 
little manual labour but great attention. The very small holders, 
however, take the liquid manure into the fields in tubs on wheel- 
barrows, and they distribute it with considerable deftness, by 
means of a ladle-like shovel. Turnips and other fodder-roots 
are, as a rule in Belgium, grown too close together. 
IFhite Crop and Clover. — For this course the land receives 
a half-dressing of manure, and is ploughed for oats much 
deeper than for wheat or rye. Sometimes the seed is sown in 
