THE ROTATION OF CROPS 



407 



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Third Year. Wheat. Preparing Land for Wheat. The last harrowing is 

 heing given. A fine tilth has been obtained as evidenced by the cloud of dust which 

 obscures the horses' feet, the harrow and the man. Certain crops permit the disin- 

 tegration of the soil particles by tillage. 



since become known as the Norfolk four-course rotation, consisting of 

 turnips, barley, clover, wheat, and yet, in spite of the most gratifying 

 results, it took seventy years of demonstration before this system of 

 rotation spread over the county of Norfolk. Dickson, of Edinburgh, 

 Scotland, wrote a treatise on the rotation of crops in 1777 and in 

 1788 Marshall, of England, stated that a common rotation was: first 

 year, wheat, barley or bigg ; second year, oats, beans or pulse ; third 

 year, fallow. Although the value of a rotation of crops was known 

 to Camillo Tarello, who urged the adoption of such a system in agri- 

 culture in 1566, before the senate of Venice, it was little understood 

 elsewhere. Tarello was far in advance of his time and gave a list of 

 the advantages of a rotation, somewhat similar to those known to-day. 

 Yet his careful experiments remained unknown and little used until 

 similar facts were discovered elsewhere. In Great Britain, previous 

 to the translation of Tarello's article and the issue of other works dur- 

 ing the eighteenth century, the subject of rotation was generally passed 

 ■over by reciting courses which might be good, bad or execrable, as 

 though their arrangement were devoid of principle and had absolutely 

 no relationship with the economical management of a farm. That 

 poverty in an agricultural community might be due to a poor rotation 

 •of crops and success due to a good one never occurred to the minds of 

 those who ought to have been interested. The value of carrying live 

 stock to consume part of the crops grown had not been recognized, and 



