recommendation of being light, cleanly, and wholesome. The common appearance of women in the fields of the continent, burdened with onerous labour, is one of the points in which foreign usages contrast unfavourably with our own. They may be seen digging potatoes, spreading manure, and even handling the plough, and threshing wheat. MISCELLANEOUS LOCAL CROPS. Flax and hemp, the hop, the apple and pear for cider and perry, with various plants valued for their aromatic seeds, medicinal and other properties, are comprehended in this class. Before the extension of our foreign commerce, and the extraordinary development of the cotton manufacture, flax, linum usitatissimum, was commonly grown in England; and the female members of most country families regarded it as one of their household duties to sit at the spinning-wheel during the long winter evenings, preparing the thread of their own linen. On many farms in the grazing districts, it is said that the remains of holes and pits may still be seen, in which the farmers were accustomed to steep their flax, in order to dissolve the gum which connects the spinning filaments, or the fibrous covering of the stem, with the woody matter of the interior. The discovery that a more profitable crop might be raised in its place, with the importation of a better dressed article from foreign countries, caused the cultivation to decline; and domestic flax-spinning was gradually laid aside, owing to the cheapness of both cotton and linen goods, consequent on improvements in machinery. In England, at present, flax is only grown in a few counties, and to a very unimportant extent. In Scotland there exist clauses in many leases restraining tenants from cultivating it, as the crop is an exhausting one to the land. But in the north of Ireland, owing to the concentration there of the linen manufacture, it is a prime object of attention to the agriculturist; and its culture is rapidly extending in the west and south. The extent of land under this crop has increased from 38,000 acres in 1847 to 140,000 acres in 1852, nor does even this approach to the quantity required by the Irish linen manufacturers. The plant is a hardy annual, shooting up to the height of two and a half or three feet. It is usually sown in March or April; flowers about the beginning of July, and is considered ripe towards the close of August. Compressed flax-seed forms the oil-cakes used in the fattening of farm stock, for which purpose both the seed and the cakes are largely imported. Hemp, cannabis sativa, notwithstanding the vast and constant demand for it to form the cordage and canvass of the navy and merchantmen, is very sparingly grown, for though the legislature has offered premiums to encourage its culture, it can be imported at a price below what will tempt the British farmer to produce it. The word canvass, applied to hempen cloth, is an obvious corruption of the Latin name of the plant. The hop, humulus lupulus, a perennial rooted plant, with an annual twining stem, is one of our native plants, flowering in June in the hedges, and ripening its seeds in September. The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon hoppan, "to climb." A proverbial distich given in Baker's Chronicle, "Turkey, carps, hoppes, pickard, and beer, Came into England all in one year,' " F originated an impression, that hops were not known in the kingdom till the reign of Henry VIII., or about the year 1524. But it was the culture of the plant that was then introduced from the Low Countries; for a century earlier, in the year 1428, the reign. of Henry VI., the hop was petitioned against as a "wicked weed," a limited supply having been obtained from abroad, and used in the preparation of beer. The native cultivation, established by the commencement of the seventeenth century, encountered opposition. In Blith's "New Survey of Husbandry," published in the time of the Commonwealth, the curious record occurs, that "the famous City of London petitioned the parliament of England against two nuisances, or offensive commodities, that were likely to come into great use and esteem; and that was Newcastle coal in regard of their stench, and hops in regard they would spoyl the taste of drink, and endanger the people." Hops are raised principally in the country around Canterbury and Maidstone in Kent; around Farnham in Surrey, with the adjoining parts of Hants; and in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Portions of the counties of Sussex, Essex, Suffolk, and Nottingham, are also devoted to their cultivation; but the area is inconsiderable. Though a regular branch of agricultural industry, yet in the chief sites of production the culture of the plant is subordinate to the growth of ordinary farm crops, the hop-grounds or gardens on single farms occupying an insignificant portion of their extent. In May, the vines, or bines, as they are called, begin to run up the poles, to the height of from sixteen to twenty feet, forming one of the most beautiful of nature's wreaths, the wild convolvulus, bryony, and traveller's joy not excepted. The time for gathering commences in the early part of September, and sometimes extends into the following month. It is indicated by the hops giving a strong scent, and by the seeds becoming firm and brown. The season is one of great animation and interest; and when the crop is unusually abundant, numbers of men, women, and children exchange the narrow courts and alleys of the metropolis for pure air and rural toil in the adjoining hop counties. But no crop is more precarious, the plant being very susceptible of injury from blights and changes of the weather. It has varied upon the same extent of surface from five millions of pounds in one season to nearly sixty millions in another. The cider and perry orchard districts, where apples and pears are raised for those liquors, range partly round the Bristol channel. But while scattered through the counties of Gloucester and Monmouth, the greatest production is in those of Devon and Somerset on the south, with Hereford and Worcester on the north. The orchards generally belong to considerable farms; and, as in the case of the hopgrounds, their management is subordinate to the cultivation of grass or grain. They give a remarkably rich and beautiful appearance to the country in spring when the trees are in blossom, and in autumn when laden with fruit. Cider was at first made for the use of the homestead, and was very little known out of the western counties till the reign of Elizabeth was drawing to a close. At that period, the old herbalist, Gerard, thus referred to it:-" I have seen about the pastures and hedgerows of a worshipful gentleman's dwelling, two miles from Hereford, so many trees of all sorts, that the servants drink, for the most part, no other drink but that which is made of apples: the quality is such, that by the report of the gentleman himself, the parson hath for tithe many hogsheads of cider." The fine apple orchards of that county began to be planted in the reign of Charles I.; and cider was somewhat common in the time of Charles II. Its general use was strongly urged upon the nation, during the wars with France under William and Anne, as tending to exclude the wines of the rival power. Philips, a poetical contemporary of Addison, wrote in its praise, "What should we wish for more? or why, in quest Of foreign vintage, insincere and mixed, Traverse the extremest world? Why tempt the rage The setting sun near Calpe's towering height?" But the general home consumption has always been limited, though the beverage is universal with the rural population of the producing districts, and is exported in considerable quantities to hot countries. The orchards sometimes occupy fifty, sixty, and even a hundred acres, the ground between the trees being occasionally ploughed and tilled. In abundant seasons, the apples collected at a single pound-house, to be subjected to the press, form enormous heaps; and hundreds of tons of the fruit are sent to the different markets of the kingdom. But a good crop is seldom realized more than once in three years. Perry, in a comparatively small quantity, is chiefly made in Worcestershire. The cultivation or the excellence of the pear in that county may account for the three pears borne in the arms of the city of Worcester. |