842 
| gions of the atmosphere. 
COLD-CHARGE. 
rays of the sun may be effected by spots upon his 
surface; and the temperature resulting from geo- 
graphical position may be modified by local pecu- 
liarities. ‘Thus the sea limits the range of tem- 
perature, by moderating alike the extremes of 
heat and cold; while large tracts of land are 
equally favourable to both. The winds have a 
| very powerful influence on the temperature of a 
| place. 
When the surface of the earth is much 
heated by the influence of the solar rays, the air 
immediately above it is rarified, and becoming 
specifically lighter, ascends into the higher re- 
Its place is quickly 
occupied by a fresh portion of air rushing in from 
every side, which, in its turn, being heated and 
rarified, also ascends. The warm air which has 
thus ascended, is gradually wafted to colder re- 
gions, where it gives out its heat, and moderates 
| the rigour of the climate to which it has been 
| transported. Evaporation is one of the principal 
sources of natural cold, the conversion of water 
into vapour being necessarily accompanied with 
the absorption of much caloric; hence, the agri- 
_ cultural improvement of a country, or whatever 
tends to facilitate the escape of the water from 
its surface by any means but evaporation, has a 
remarkable influence on its temperature. The 
gradual amelioration of the climate of America, 
is undoubtedly to be ascribed to this cause, as 
| well as that of Hurope. 
COLD, in medicine. See CaTarru. 
COLD-CHARGE. A charge consisting of vin- 
egar, Armenian bole, and the white of eggs, 
mixed together to the consistency of a poultice. 
See the article CHaren. 
COLE, Cosa, or Cotza,—botanically Brassica 
| campestris oleifera. A hardy, cultivated, biennial, 
| agricultural plant, of the cabbage and turnip ge- 
| nus. 
| erous subvariety of rape; but may be readily 
It is frequently confounded with the oleif- 
distinguished from that plant by the greater size 
of its pods and seeds, by the clearer and lighter 
yellowness of its flowers, and especially by the 
roughness or hispidity of its leaves. It is consi- 
| derably the most oleiferous of the brassicas; it 
ought always to be cultivated in preference to 
rape, when oil is the principal object; and it is 
extensively cultivated as an oil plant in the 
Netherlands. It is cultivated in nearly the same 
| manner as turnips, but requires a richer soil, and 
admits of being sown at a later period in the 
season; it is sometimes sown to be fed off with 
sheep or cattle, on land which is unsuitable for 
turnips, or on which they fail; it sometimes 
occurs with great advantage, in a rotation, im- 
mediately before wheat; and in the flat, rich 
fennishly meadowy tracts of the counties of Lin- 
coln, Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Essex, it is 
profitably cultivated for the double purpose of 
early winter feeding and of oil,—the crop being 
| sown between the middle-of July and the middle 
of August, eaten by sheep from the latter part of 
autumn till the end of January, and matured for 
COLEA. 
its oil seeds in the following autumn. But, in 
order to its making an amply remunerating re- 
turn, the land for it must either be newly drain- 
ed fennish-meadow, or rich and newly broken up 
pasture, or very fertile corn-land, well-manured 
with spit-dung. 
In the Netherlands, where cole is a prominent 
and highly esteemed agricultural plant, not only 
is 1t grown on rich land, with a profusion of such 
powerful manures as night-soil and bruised rape- 
cakes, but it is economized and strengthened by 
a system of transplanting similar to what is prac- 
tised with the cabbage and borecole brassicas. 
Radcliff, in his Agriculture of East and West 
Flanders, states the following as the usual pro- 
cess :—“ The seed-bed is sown in August or even 
to the middle of September. In October, or 
sooner, the stubble is ploughed over, manured, 
and ploughed again. The plants are dibbled in 
the seams of the ploughing—each furrow-slice 
being twelve inches broad—and are set out at 
twelve inches distance in the rows. Instead of 
dibbling upon the second ploughing, they, in 
many cases, lay the plants at the proper distances 
across the furrow, and, as the plough goes for- 
ward, the roots are covered, and a woman follows 
to set them a little up, and to give them a firm- 
ness in the ground where necessary. Immedi- 
ately after the frost, and again in the month of 
April, the intervals are weeded and hand-hoed, 
and the earth drawn up to the plants, which is 
the last operation till harvest. The crop is pulled 
rather green, but ripens in the stack, and is 
thrashed out without any particular manage- | 
ment; but the haulm is burnt for ashes, as a 
manure, which are found to be so highly valuable 
beyond all other sorts which have been tried, 
that they bear a price as three to one above the 
other kinds; and it is considered that upon 
clover, a dressing of one-third less of these is 
amply sufficient.” A variety of cole with white- 
coloured flowers may sometimes be met with; 
but it is less hardy than the common yellow- 
flowered variety. The seeds for oil are treated 
in the same manner as those of rape. See Rape. 
The average produce of an acre of good cole is 
about 30 bushels of seed.—Museum Rusticum.— 
Knowledge Society's Treatise on Flemish Husbandry. | 
—Young’s Farmers Calendar.—Society of Genitle- 
men’s Complete Farmer —Radelif’s Agriculture of 
Flanders.—Loudon’s Gardener's Magazine. 
COLEA. A small genus of ornamental stove 
plants, of the trumpet-flower tribe. The yellow- 
flowered species, C. floribunda, inhabits the forests 
of the east coast of Madagascar ; and was brought 
to flower for the first time in Europe, in 1840. 
It is a shrub of stately aspect and singular habit ; 
its stem is seven or eight feet high, and perfectly 
simple; its leaves are pinnated, and have an im- 
posing appearance, and grow only as a sort of 
crown on the summit of the stem ; and its flowers 
have a bright ochreous-yellow colour, with a very 
pale border, and grow on the old wood,—from 
