RAPE.
A certain amount of rape-seed must go into the bird-seed ration of the canary, or your singer will not be well and happy. This every person who keeps a bird knows. Rape-seed produces an oil that is valuable for a number of different uses, and is as common in European countries as kero sene is in the United States.
The rape plant is a thin-rooted relative of the turnip, with a decided turnip odor, when a leaf is bruised. Above the stringy root rises a large head of succulent blue-green foliage, the leaves much divided and curled, like leaves of some of the kales. The tops grow two and three feet high on good, mellow soil; even four feet in soil especially rich and well-tilled.
The farmer sows the seed broadcast on a field from which he has harvested an early crop, like oats. Two months later he turns his pigs or sheep in, and they graze the tops off. It is best to let the stock have grass pasture, too, for rape alone makes flabby flesh, and animals are likely to eat more than is good for them. Feeders of stock find the better plan is to cut the rape and feed it with grain and dry fodder in stable and feed lot.
Other methods are to sow oats, and a fortnight later sow rape, and harrow it in. The oats have the start of the other crop; they are harvested while the tops of the rape are short. Four weeks later the field is just right to turn sheep into. As fast as the tops are gnawed off new leaves are formed. This pasture keeps on coming when
others are dry.
Rape makes a good nurse plant for clover, which is feeble in starting, and needs shade. This com bination forms a good cover crop in young or chards. Feeding off the rape does no great harm once the clover becomes established.
In this country the value of rape is not yet realized by farmers and stock raisers. One visit to a good English farm would convert them.
For oil, the rape-seed is put through fanning mills, and cleaned of all foreign bodies. Then it is run through rollers, which reduce it to a paste. Next, this paste is heated, and put under a pres sure of 2,84o pounds to the square inch. The oil oozes from under the press, and is collected in troughs that lead to reservoirs. The cake that remains is ground and sold for stock food, as rape seed meal. It is also used as a fertilizer. It still contains considerable oil, and is rich in nitrogen, the most expensive element that plants require.
The oil is refined and filtered for table use and for cooking. Without filtering, it is the staple illuminating oil of Europe, and is quite as com monly used for lubrication.
I do not know of a better instance of a weed that has been brought into the service of man than rape, which makes wealth in so many forms, both as raw materials and easily manufactured products.