extremes of north and south agree in being
lands both abundantly flowing with oil.
Colza is grown in the eastern and in the
central provinces; but it is more especially
cultivated in the northern departments, and
pre-eminently so in the rich one known as
the Department du Nord. In the environs
of Lille, there are oil-mills by hundreds,
exactly like the one I am about to describe.
Yet one English advertisement states that
Messrs. Suchones, of Provence, in the
south of France—the address being just
as precise as that of Mr. Smith, of East
Anglia, Great Britain—Messrs. Suchones beg
to inform their numerous customers, that
they have no other agent in England for
their genuine French lamp oil than Messrs.
Someoneelse, who favour the public with a
more distinct reference to their whereabouts.
It is far from impossible that Colza oil may
be exported from Provence to London; for
a portion of that manufactured in the Department
du Nord is shipped from Dunkirk for
Marseilles, where, however, they mostly use
it in making soap. And even then they have
not enough. France does not grow a
sufficiency of greasy matters for her own
consumption. The soaperies of the south, and
of Marseilles especially, obtain a portion of
their oils from Spain and Italy.

Colza is sown for the purpose of serving
three distinct purposes: to be ploughed into
the land as green manure in the early stage
of its growth; to fatten cattle upon the land,
or to feed milch cows, at a more advanced
period; and to ripen its seeds for the production
of oil. The two former styles of cropping
you will not witness except during summer
and autumn; but were you to take a country
walk in the north of France in winter or in
early spring, you could hardly fail to notice a
number of fields planted with what, at the
first glance, you might mistake for Swede
turnips; only, on looking closer, you would
say they were very bad and stunted turnips;
being deficient in the great essential of a
globular root, and having merely a stalk
leaning on one side, and inclined to be what
gardeners call " run up o' legs." Their
previous history has been this. At mid June,
or thereabouts, the seed is sown in a separate
plot of ground, where the plants remain
undisturbed until the autumn.

In October, the field in which the
seedlings are to be planted is heavily manured.
Colza thrives best in a light, deep, hazel
loam, permeable to the genial influence of
the rains, the atmosphere, and the sunshine;
and is all the better for a liberal artificial
enrichment of the soil. Showery weather
is desirable at the time; but the planting
is nevertheless performed under bright
sunshine, in confident anticipation of the
autumnal rains. Nothing can be easier
than the way in which the little Colzas
are settled in life, after their expatriation
from their nursery. They are brought to
their new home tied up in large bundles, and
are respectfully received by sundry ploughmen
already in attendance on the ground.
To each ploughman is attached a small suite
of women and children. The farmer
himself, or perhaps only his labourer, turns up a
furrow with his plough, from one end of the
field to the other. In this long furrow the
ladies and demoiselles lay the Colza plants, at
the proper distances. With another stroke of
the plough the roots of the plants are
covered up, the manure on the surface being
likewise turned in next them. Then another
stroke of the plough, without plants, to leave
the necessary interval; and then another
furrow, with them. And so on, till the field
is finished. At the first word, a farmer will
have understood all this. It is a nice healthy
amusement for the women and children, not
unlike our Christmas game, " I sent a letter
to my love; I dripped it, I dropped it; " only
it is a pity they do not earn a little better
wages as the consequence of their day's
diversion.

The crop receives no further culture. The
thickness of its growth chokes almost every
weed. Its success is precarious, if the young
shoots or blossoms are frost-bitten in spring.
Ordinarily, the glaucous-leaved plant sends
up its flower-stem, and the whole field is soon
covered with a bright yellow garment.
Although a rather faint and sickly odour is
emitted, it is not unpleasant to follow the
footpath through a Colza field, and listen to the
quail as it calls, ever invisibly, beneath its
thickset covert. Innumerable busy bees, and
a rabble of big, bouncing, buzzing cockchafers
likewise take the liberty of disporting
themselves therein; while earth and sun are
combining to brew the oil which shall cheer and
enlighten your hours of wintry darkness.

When the fall of the withered lower leaves,
and the yellow tinge of the bending stalk
announce that nature has completed the great
work of maturing the seed, not a moment
must be lost in completing the harvest, if the
weather be but fine. For the sparrows and the
linnets will come in to take their tithe in kind,
without agreeing to any sort of commutation,
and the more they taste the seed, the better
they find that it suits their palates. So,
haste ye, my hard-working dames of France!
Hither hasten Avith your reaping-hooks. Lay
the Colzas prostrate, bear them gently to the
sail-cloth spread out in one corner of the field,
for fear you lose a single black, round, plump,
precious, unctuous grain of seed. If the men
won't thresh it, you will; and winnow it,
and sift it, and carry it home, and spread
it out thin on the granary floor to dry and
ripen a little more perfectly, and store it in
sacks, and sell it at market, or take it to the
oil-mill and hand it over to your own oiler.
It is not the absence of male assistance which
will make you leave matters to take their
course, still less to let them remain at a
stand-still.