Report on the Agriculture of Belgium. 
Gl 
of wheat were taken alternately with beans or oats. The yield 
of flax was about 8 cwt. of prepared fibre, and 24 bushels of 
seed;* of wheat more than 50 bushels, and of beans about 40. 
After such an exhaustive course of cropping it was found de- 
sirable to give the land a rest by sowing clover, which yielded 
about 5 tons of hay per acre in two cuttings. It was the practice 
to sell everything off the land : corn, straw, and clover. No 
roots were grown, and no manure applied. The sole object of 
the concessionaires was to get as much as possible out of the 
land while it was in their hands. Under the new system the 
result is not much better, for the proprietors follow the old 
practice ; and when the land begins to require manuring and 
management they let it at rents which vary to some extent with 
the age of the polder and the quality of the land. Old polders, 
forming the bulk of the district, are let at from 325. to 455. per 
acre ; but first-rate grass-land will easily fetch 4Z. per acre. 
One practice, however, is considered essential in the cultiva- 
tion of a new polder, and that is to reap all the corn-crops 
" knee-high." This long stubble is ploughed in, not so much as 
a manure, but as a means of lightening the land, and of assisting 
in its drainage, for which no other provision is made except the 
ditches and canals already mentioned. 
The course of cropping pursued on the majority of old-polder 
farms would in England be regarded as the last effort of a bad 
farmer. The following is a fair example : (1) winter barley, 
(2) beans, (3) wheat, or rye followed by turnips,t (4) beans, (5) 
wheat, (6) oats, (7) fallow, on which couch grows spontaneously 
and is encouraged. After this " natural grass " has remained 
its appointed time, generally two or three years, the land is 
ploughed in the autumn to the depth of 5 or 6 inches, and, after 
the furrow has got stale by exposure during fine weather, it is 
harrowed, and cleaned as well as possible. Manure is then 
spread on, and the land is ploughed to the depth of 10 inches, 
the first crop taken being either beans, wheat, or winter barley. 
No manure is given to any other course. The only roots grown 
are the catch-crop of turnips after rye, certainly not on more 
than one-twentieth of the arable land every year ; and the only 
other provision for cattle, except permanent grass, is that yielded 
by grass-fallows. Therefore it is by no means wonderful that we 
found on these farms, as we were told we should, as many horses 
as cows and oxen. Formerly the fallow was left bare, and kept 
so for a year by repeated ploughings after a spring manuring ; 
but the farmers say that the land is now too dear for them to 
* The quantity of fibre is not relatively so greut as might have been I'xpected, 
i)ut the yield of seed is very large, 
t Only on the lightest Polder-laud. 
