22 
licj 'orl on the Agriculture of Belgium. 
the winter ; but otherwise, in the spring the land has a shallow 
ploughing, a harrowing, and a rolling. The clover (usuallj' 
cow-grass) is either sown immediately after the corn, especially it 
both are sown in the winter, and the two harrowed in together, or 
the oats are harrowed in first, and the clover sown about a week 
or eight days afterwards. Oats are not generally harvested 
until late in August or the beginning of September ; but owing 
to the warmth of the autumn it is frequently possible to get 
a cutting of clover two or three weeks after harvest, though this 
is not always done. In the following spring Dutch ashes or 
liquid manure is extensively applied to the clover crop, and 
generally a dressing is given the previous year soon after the 
white crop has shown above ground. It is especially necessary 
to notice this practice, as the luxuriance of clover in Flanders is 
one of the most remarkable facts we have to record. Some 
of the statements which we received respecting the yield of clover 
were so extraordinary that we cannot quote them ; but a crop 
of 15 tons of green clover per acre yielded by three cuttings 
in one year, may be regarded as a moderate estimate. We shall, 
hereafter, have to refer more particularly to this subject, and to 
the causes of this luxuriance, therefore at present the bare record 
of the fact will be sufficient for our purpose. 
Flax with Clover or Carrots. — Every small farmer grows a 
certain quantity of flax if his land is at all suitable for it, and 
great pains are taken to secure a fine tilth by winter and spring 
ploughings, as well as repeated harrowings and rollings. The 
flax seed (Riga) and the seed for the " simultaneous " crop are 
sown together in March, if possible ; an enormous quantity of 
the former being used, as, when grown thickly, the quality of 
the fibre is finer. About the end of June or the beginning 
of July the flax is harvested by being pulled up, and dried in 
small sheaves. From that time the carrots have the ground 
to themselves, so that they yield a much better crop (about 
10 tons per acre) when sown with flax than with wheat, the 
harvest of which is so much later. Other particulars connected 
with this crop will be more advantageously recorded hereafter. 
Buclacheat. — This crop is very much grown in some parts of 
the light-land districts, and it furnishes an agricultural topic on 
which differences of opinion are held to be allowable. The 
advantages of the crop are said to be that it needs no manure^ 
that owing to its not requiring to be sown until late in the 
spring the land can be thoroughly cleaned previously, and that 
any weeds still remaining will certainly be choked by the rapid 
growth of the buckwheat. The opponents of its culture hold 
that although no manure is given for this crop, it completely 
exhausts the land of what it previously contained ; that the 
produce per acre is not more than one-half what would be 
