When a large field is to be planted, a more expeditious mode Is adopted ; and this is the most usual practice in Holland and Germany. The land having been prepared, and the manure well incorporated, a deep furrow is drawn with the plough ; women follow with baskets of which they set, a foot apart, slanting againet the furrow slice. When the plough returns, the earth is thrown against these plants ; and a man or woman follows, who, with the foot, presses the earth down upon the roots. Sometimoe plants are put into each furrow, which it then ten inches or more wide ; but the best cultivators put them only In every alternate furrow. In thia case also there are no ridges. The season of the year affords sufficient moisture in the north of Europe to ensure the growth of the plants; and If they have escaped the fly in the seed-bed, they are now tolerably safe. No further atten tion is requisite till spring. The weeds are then carefully extirpated by hand and hoe ; and where the distance of the plants admits of it, the light plough stirs the ground between the rows, throwing the earth tower& the stems, yet so as to leave each plant in a little basin to catch the water and conduct it to the roots. When the plants are Invigorated with rich liquid manure, such as night soil mixed with water, or the draininga from dunghills, they become extremely luxu riant; and every trouble or expense bestowed upon them Is aniply repaid. The difference between a crop partially neglected and another carefully cultivated often exceeds fifty per emit.
There is not much difference between the value of colza and rape seed (called myrtle in French); but the latter produces leas. Wheu the rape is transplanted before winter, it is much Inure productive than when sown in spring. In the latter case it produces Deed the same year. It is sown in drills, and thinned out by the hoe, and in favourable seasons a tolerable crop is obtained. It is generally sown on land which could not be brought into a proper tilth after harvest, and which would require the frost of winter to mellow it.
Great crops of cole-seed and rape have been produced in the fens of Lincolnshire and the alluvial soils in Essex, by merely paring and burning the surface and ploughing in the ashes; and these crops, alternating with oats, have in many instances so exhausted the soil as to cause a great prejudice against them in the minds of the landlords. Many leases have a clause prohibiting their cultivation, except to be oaten green by sheep. The principal cause, however, of the diminution of this crop in England is the inferior price obtained for the seed when compared with wheat, which CM be raised on the same land, and is a more certain crop.
The rape and colza ripen their seed very unequally. The lower pods are reedy to burst before those at top are full. If the season is wet at harvest, much of the seed is lest ; mid, without great attention, wino loss is sustained in the most favourable seasons. It should be cut when the dew is on it, and moved as little as possible. If the weather permits, it is threshed out on a cloth in the field, and as many threshers are employed as can be conveniently collected, that no time may be lost, when the weather is fair. The seed is spread out on the floor of a granary that it may not heat, and is turned over frequently. It is then sold to the crushers, who express the oil. The pods and small branches broken off in threshing are much relished by cattle. This crop returns little to the land, and is of Itself very exhausting. Not so, however, is the rape, when sown as food for sheep. It is, on the contrary, a valuable substitute for turnips, upon land which is too wet and heavy for this root. The Brassica (lemma
is more succulent than the Brassica napes. Its stem is not so hard, and the soft pith which it contains is much relished by every kind of live-stock. To have it in perfection, the laud should be prepared and matured as fur turnips. The rape should be sown in drills ten inches apart, in Juue, July, or August. It will be fit for 'consumption before winter, during winter, or after winter, according to the period of its seedtime. In theslaat case, in the end of March and beginning of April it will be a great help to the ewes and lambs. It will produce excellent food till it begins to be in flower, when it should imme diately be ploughed up. The ground will be found greatly recruited by thus crop, which has taken nothing from it and has added much by the dung and urine of the sheep. Whatever be the succeeding crop,it cannot fail to be productive ; and if the land is not clean, the farmer must not have neglected the double opportunity of destroying weeds in the preceding summer and in the early part of spring. If the rape is fed off in time, it may be succeeded by barley or oats with clover or grass seeds, or potatoes, if the soil is not too wet. Thus, no crop will be lost, and the rape will have been a clear addition to the produce of the land. Any crop which Is taken off the land in a green state, especially if it be fed off with sheep, may be repeated, without risk of failure, provided the laud be properly tilled ; but where eels or rape have produced seed, they cannot be profitably sown iu less than five or six years after on the same land.
When the oil has been pressed out from the seed, the residue (which contains a portion of starch and mucilage not changed into oil) end the husk of the seed form a hard cake known by the name of rape-cake. This has been long used on the Continent, and has lately in this country been used, to feed cows and pigs with, as we use the linseed cakes : lint it is also much used as a rich manure, and for this purpose it is imported in large quantities. When rape-cake is ground to a powder and thrilled with the seed on poor light lands, it supplies nourishment to the young plants, and greatly accelerates their growth ; but if it be added in a large proportion in immediate contact with the seed, on heavy impervious soils, it often undergoes the putrid fer mentation, which it communicates to the seed eown, and, instead of nourishing, destroys it In this case it is useful to mix it with some dry porous earth or with ashes, which will prevent the too rapid decomposition. Dissolved in water and mixed with urine, it forms one of the most efficacious of artificial liquid manures. Hence it is probable that the most advantageous mode of using it on the land, after it has been dissolved in the urine-tank, is to apply it by means of a water-cart to the rows where the seed has been already drilled, or some time before it is put in. Where flax is to be sown, this mixture applied a few days before the seed is sown, so as to allow it to sink into the Ea, is considered in Flanders as next in value to the empty ings of privies, which with them hold the first rank, for producing fine crops of flax. When a crop appears sickly, and not growing as it should do, owing to poverty iu the soil, a top-dressing of rape-cake dissolved in water, if no urine is at hand, will in general excite the powers of vegetation; and it is highly probable that it may greatly assist the effects of saltpetre or of nitrate of soda, where these salts are applied. The cultivation of rape or tole for spring food cannot be too strongly recommended to the farmers of heavy clay soils.