8 THE FIEST AND FUNDAMENTAL PPJNCIPLE IN AGEICULTUEE. 



manures employed, I fear the result would not show this to be a 

 profitable method of farming. 



Til. Our Rotation System ; and has it fulfilled its Mission in 

 Upholding the Fertility of the Soil .? 



The principle here adopted is right so far as a new supply of 

 vegetable matter can be obtained by putting down land two or 

 three years to grass ; for without doubt the origin of this make- 

 shift was to obtain such a supply ; but now that land in general 

 has become so reduced in vegetable matter, three years in grass, 

 with rye-grass alone, are quite insufficient to bring it up to a 

 paying condition. 



The fact that a tenant-farmer is bound to cultivate under any 

 given rotation is wrong in principle, because farms and districts 

 differ from each other so very widely that no prescribed rule can 

 be laid down to suit all. I shall here mention a few circum- 

 stances under which enforced tillage becomes a disheartening 

 <ind unprofitable business, namely, a farm may be too steep, or 

 surrounded with bad roads, and far from markets. Under these 

 circumstances tillage is too expensive to pay, even though the 

 land be good. The elevation may be too high for profitable 

 tillage. The vegetable matter may be of poor quality, or 

 reduced below a paying quantity ; and the tenant being bound 

 to plough it up at a fixed age, renders him pow^erless in restoring 

 the fertility of the soil. The rotation system also prevents a 

 tenant from putting down any of the farm to permanent pasture. 

 Another condition that goes hand in hand with the rotation 

 system on many properties is that value for grass left by a 

 tenant is restricted to three months' growth, or, at farthest, to 

 what is called the season. This has a lowering effect towards 

 the end of a lease, and tends to the withholding of the seeds 

 necessary to the production of good grass. Professedly, the 

 rotation system is intended to prevent farmers from reducing 

 the fertility of the soil ; but here proprietors restrict to a mini- 

 mum the value of that very fertility when a farmer has it to 

 dispose of. Surely it is possible to let out land to farmers under 

 more reasonable conditions, and protect at the same time the 

 interests of proprietors. A provision in agreements that a 

 certain proportion of the arable land should always be under 

 grass, and that none . should be ploughed up nnder a specified 

 age, would, in my opinion, secure good farming, and at the same 

 time leave farmers at liberty to select the system best adapted 

 to the holding. And if there were a certainty of receiving full 

 value for all grass land of any age at a tenant's removal, this 

 would go far to jDrevent the exhausted state of farms at the 

 expiry of leases. Under conditions like the foregoing, farmers 

 would learn how to manage grass land, which is the first step in 



