Belgium, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Sir James Emerson Tennent

The general aspect of a Flemish farm; the absence of hedge-rows, or, where they are to be found, their elaborate training and inter-texture, so as to present merely a narrow vegetating surface of some two or three feet high, and twice as many inches in thickness; the minute division of their fields into squares, all bearing different crops, but performing the same circle of rotation, and the total disappearance of all weeds or plants, other than those sought to be raised; all these show the practical and laborious experience, by which they have reduced their science to its present system, and the indomitable industry by which, almost inch by inch, these vast and arid plains have been converted from blowing sands into blooming gardens. Here draining and irrigation are each seen in their highest perfection, owing to the frequent intersection of canals; whilst the same circumstance, affording the best facilities for the transport of manure, has been one of the most active promoters of farming improvement. Chaptal relates, that having traversed one of the sandy plains of Flanders in company with Napoleon, the Emperor, on his return to Paris, adverted to the circumstance of its gloomy barrenness with an expression of surprise as well as regret, when the practical philosopher suggested, that the construction of a canal across it would, within five years, convert the unproductive waste into luxuriant farms. The experiment was tried, and proved triumphantly successful. The canal was opened, and in less than the time predicted, the results anticipated were more than realized in its effects.

To fix the flying sands of Belgium, the main and permanent expedient has been the application of manures; the preparation and care of this important ingredient has been, in Flanders, reduced to an actual trade, and barges innumerable are in constant transit on the canals, conveying it from its depôts and manufactories in the villages and towns to the rural districts, where it is to be applied. Servants, as a perquisite, are allowed a price for all the materials serviceable for preparing it, which they can collect in the house and farm-yards, and the value of which often amounts to as much as their nominal wages. Pits and a tank, called a smoor-hoop, or smothering heap, are attached to every farm, and tended with a systematic care that bespeaks the importance of their contents. Into these, every fermentable fluid is discharged, and mixed with the refuse of vegetables; the rape-cake, which remains after expressing the oil, wood-ashes, soaper’s waste, grains from distilleries, weeds from the drains, and, in short, every other convertible article collected in the establishment; and often, in addition, plants such as broom are sown in the lands, expressly for the purpose of being ploughed in when green to increase their fertility, or to be cut for fermentation in the smoor-hoop. This latter is constructed with bricks, like a tan-pit, and covered with cement to avoid escape or filtration; and its contents, at the larger establishments, are sold to the farmers at from three to five francs a hogshead, in proportion to the quality.

The circle of rotation is observed with equal precision and scientific skill, and generally consists of four or five crops and a clean fallow, but varies, of course, according to the nature of the soil and the articles in demand. The season was too advanced for us to see the majority of the crops upon the ground, the grain being mostly housed; but those which were still in the field were of the most luxuriant quality. Pasturage, there was comparatively little; but clover, the chef-d’œuvre of Flemish husbandry, whence it was introduced into England, we saw in high perfection. Some plants which are not usual in Great Britain were to be seen in great abundance; large fields of tobacco, hemp, colza or rape-seed, which is largely sown for crushing, buck-wheat or sarrasin, (probably another importation of the Crusaders) from which they make a rich and nutritious bread. Beans and feeding crops, especially carrots, which the sandy lands produce luxuriantly, and turnips, appeared to be favourites especially near the villages.

But the important article, and that which I was most desirous to see, was the flax, which, however, had been almost all pulled before my visit, so that I could only see the rouissage or process of watering—which, in the district around Courtrai, is performed in a manner almost peculiar to themselves; indeed, I may say altogether so, so far as success is concerned; for although the same practice prevails in the Department du Nord, in France, in the vicinity of St. Amand and Valenciennes, it is with a much less satisfactory result: and in Russia, where it is practised to some extent, the flax produced is, in every way, of inferior quality. It seems, in fact, to be a question whether, in addition to the slow and deep current of the Lys, and its remarkable freedom from all impurity, it be not possessed of some peculiar chemical qualities, which account for its efficiency for this purpose, whilst identically the same process utterly fails in other streams with no perceptible difference in the quality of their waters.

It is impossible to over estimate the importance to Great Britain of such an immediate improvement in the process of flax cultivation at home, as will place her on an equality with her rivals abroad. At present, it is an incontrovertible and uneasy fact, that with her trade in yarn and linen hourly encreasing, she is in the same proportion becoming more and more dependant upon foreign countries for the supply of the raw material. The cultivation of flax in England, is, in all probability, diminishing in amount, whilst year after year, our imports from Holland, Belgium and Prussia, are rising in a remarkable manner. Only look to the following facts. The great increase in our manufacture of linen yarn, both in England, Scotland and Ireland has taken place, since the year 1820; we then imported largely from the continent, and spun only for our own weavers at home, we have since then ceased to import yarn spun by machinery altogether, except a very small portion of the very finest for cambrics; and actually export to France, and elsewhere, to the value of £746,000 per annum. Our exports of British and Irish linen have increased in the mean time, from 36,522,333 yards in 1820, to 60,954,697 in 1833, and 77,195,894 yards in 1838, and what has been the case as regards the importation of flax? The import duty upon foreign flax, both dressed and undressed, was at the commencement of this period, £10. 14s. 6d. per cwt.; as our manufacture increased, and our home supply fell short, that duty was, in 1825, reduced to four pence; when the import increased from 376,170 cwt. to 1,018,837 cwt. In the year following, the necessity still becoming more pressing, and no relief arising from home, it was further reduced to three pence; the year following to two pence, and in 1828 to one penny. The importation, all this time, has been going on steadily increasing, showing an average on the five years, from 1830 to 1835, of 751,331 cwt., and amounting, by the last printed returns of the House of Commons, for 1838, to 1,626,276 cwt.[22] It is manifest, that a trade so valuable to us as our linen manufacture, can never be said to be safe, so long as we are thus dependant for the very means of its support upon those whose manifest advantage it is to destroy it.

In order to remedy this evil, it seems to me, to require only a vigorous exertion on behalf of our own farmers, and those whose direct interest it is to give them encouragement to lead to such an improvement in our process of cultivation and dressing, as would speedily render our flax of equal quality with that of our rivals in the Low Countries; we may thus safely rely on its augmented value in the market, to ensure its production in sufficient quantity to meet our demands, and relieve us altogether from a dependance upon foreigners. For the landed proprietor and the farmer, not less than the manufacturer, there is a mine of unwrought wealth to be secured in this important article, and my earnestness upon this point arises from the fact that from all I have seen myself, or can possibly learn from others, the field is equally open to England as to the Netherlands—she obtains the seed from the same quarter, her soil and her climate are equally suitable; the plant up to a certain stage, is as healthy and promising with us, as with them, but there the parallel ceases, and in all the subsequent processes, the superior system of the Belgian gives him a golden advantage over us. Still notwithstanding all our disadvantages, Irish flax, for the strong articles, to which alone it is suited, produces a firmer, and in every respect, a better thread than Flemish or Dutch of the same character.

One source of superiority which the farmer of Holland and the Netherlands enjoys, is derived from the fact of his saving the seed of his own flax. In the first instance, he imports, as we do from Riga, seed which yields a strong and robust plant, during the first year; its produce is then preserved and sown a second time, when it becomes more delicate in its texture, and the seed then obtained, is never parted with by the farmer, but produces the finest and most valuable plant. As this, however, in time deteriorates, it is necessary to keep up a constant succession by annual importation of northern seed, which in turn become acclimated, refined, and are superseded by the next in rotation. The sagacious Hollander thus obtains for himself a seed for his own peculiar uses, of twice the value of any which he exports; an advantage of which England cannot expect to avail herself, till the process of saving the flax-seed for herself, becomes more generally introduced, instead of annually importing upwards of 3,300,000 bushels, as we do at present.

In Flanders, where the cultivation is so all important, the rotation of all other crops, is regulated with ultimate reference to the flax, which comes into the circle only once in seven years, and in some instances, once in nine, whilst, as it approaches the period for saving it, each antecedent crop is put in with a double portion of manure. For itself, the preparation is most studiously and scrupulously minute, the ground is prepared rather like a flower-bed than a field, and spade labour always preferred to the coarser and less minute operation of the plough, every film of a weed is carefully uprooted, and the earth abundantly supplied, generally with liquid manure, fermented with rape cake. The seed is then sown remarkably thick, so that the plants may not only support one another, but struggling upwards to the light, may throw out few branches, and rise into a taller and more delicate stem. The weeding is done, whilst the plant is still so tender and elastic as that it may rise again readily after the operation, and it is a remarkable illustration of the studied tenderness with which the cultivation is watched, that the women and children who are employed to weed it, are generally instructed to do so against the wind, in order that the breeze may lift the stems as soon as they have left them, instead of allowing them to grow crooked, by lying too long upon the ground. Again, in order to give it a healthy support during its growth, stakes are driven into the ground at equal distances, from the top of which, cords, or thin rods are extended, dividing the field into minute squares, and thus preventing the plants from being laid down by any but a very severe wind.

The time of pulling depends upon whether the farmer places most value upon the seed or the fibre of the particular field. If the former, he must wait till the plant is thoroughly ripe, its capsules hard, its leaves fallen, and its stem yellow; but in this case, the stalk is woody and the fibre coarse and hard; whereas, if the fineness of the fibre be the first object, it is pulled whilst the stalk is still green and tender, and before the fruit has come to maturity. At Courtrai and its vicinity, the flax when severed from the ground, after being carefully sunned and dried, is stored for twelvemonths before it is submitted to the process of watering. In the Pays de Waes, however, this practice does not obtain, the steeping taking place immediately on its being pulled, and I find the inclination of opinion to be in favour of the latter mode, as the former is said to render the flax harsh and discolored, whilst that immersed at once is soft and silky, and of a delicate and uniform tint.

It is remarkable that although the process of rouissage or watering is felt to be one of the utmost nicety and importance, the ultimate value of the flax being mainly dependent upon it, no uniform system prevails throughout the various provinces of Belgium. In Hainault and around Namur, where an impression is held that the effluvia of the flax, whilst undergoing the rouissage, is injurious to health, it is interdicted by the police, and it is consequently dew-riped, simply by spreading it upon the grass, and turning it from time to time, till the mucilaginous matter, by which the fibre is retained around the stem, is sufficiently decomposed to permit of its being readily separated from the wood. In the Pays de Waes, the flax is steeped in still water as in Ireland, except that in the latter country, a small stream is contrived, if possible, to pass in and out of the pit during the process.[23] The system of the Pays de Waes is that which has met with the most decided approbation in Belgium; it is recommended officially to the farmers in the instructions published by the Société Linière, an association instituted for the purpose of promoting the cultivation of flax, and its various manufactures.[24] The system at Courtrai, consists in immersing the flax, after being dried and stored for twelvemonths, in the running water of the Lys; an operation, which in their hands, is performed with the utmost nicety and precision, and for which it is so renowned that the crops for many miles, even so far as Tournai, are sent to the Lys to undergo the rouissage.