RAPE, or COLE-SEED (Brassica napes; see BRASSICA), a biennial plant much cultivated bath on account of its herbage and its. oil-producing seeds. It is a native of Europe, and perhaps of England; but it is hard to say where it is truly indigenous and where naturalized. It is so nearly allied to brassica rape (turnip), B. campesfris (Swedish turnip, eolza. etc.), B. oleracea (kale, cabbage, etc.), and B. prtecor (summer rape), that botanical distinction is difficult, particularly as to sonic of the cultivated varieties. Dr.
Lindley gives the following synoptical view of the most characteristic differences of these species, in Morton's of Agriculture : Leaves bright green B rapa.
Leaves glaucous— Leaves hispid when young B campestris.
Leaves never hispid— Siliques spreading B napes.
Siliques erect— Calyx erect. oleracea.
Calyx spreading B prucox.
The root of rape is slender, or in cultivation sometimes becomes carrot-shaped (see NAvEw); but it never becomes turnip-shaped. The stem is taller than that of the tur nip, or Swedish turnip, and the foliage more luxuriant. The cultivation of rape is very general in many parts of the continent of Europe, from which it seems to have been introduced into England at least as early as the 16th c.; and in the 17th c., if not sooner, large quantities of oil were made from its seeds, chiefly iu the fenny and other alluvial districts of the east of England, where also it has long been most extensively employed for feeding sheep. On the continent it is not unusual to sow rape in order to green manuring, plowing, its herbage into the soil, a mode of enriching land much more com mon in some parts of Europe than it is in Britain. Rape delights in a rich alluvial soil, and is particularly suitable for newly-reclaimed bogs and fens, in which the turnip does not succeed well; but it is also extensively cultivated iu the chalk and oolite districts of the south of England. The mode of cultivation does not differ much from that of turnip,
and similar manures are used. In rich soils rape sometimes attains a height of three, or even four feet, so that the sheep turned in are hidden beneath the leaves and seem to eat their way into the field. They eat the stalks even more greedily than the leaves. A too feeding feedin on rape is, however, apt to produce which a sprinkling of salt, a supply or hay, etc., are found useful in preventing. When rape is cultivated for seed it is sown in autumn. When the seed is ripe rape is cut whit the sickle, and after a short time allowed for drying, the seed is thrashed out, when the haulm is often burned, a wasteful practice, as its decay affords more abundant and useful manure, and indeed cattle are fond of it as food. Rape-cake, the mass of seeds from which oil has been obtained by crushing, is used for feedin.. oxen and sheep, but is very inferior to linseed cake and some other kinds of oil-cake. feeding into dust it is a very valuable manure. Rape-oil is extensively used for machinery. and for lamps; but the oil and cake so called are not exclusively obtained from this plant, nor are the names colza-oil and rape-oil used to discriminate the produce of different plants, although in some parts of Europe the name colza is given to varieties of brassica campestris and B. oleracea, which tire culti vated in the same way as rape. B. prcecas is also cultivated in some places, being sown in spring and reaped in autumn. The seeds of other cruciferous plants are also crushed indiscriminately with these, and the oil and cake sold by the same names. See Orns.— The name rape is from the same root as Ger. reps, and Lat. rapa (a turnip); cote-seed and colza from the same as kale.