112 [Senate 



grass seeds ripened before the hay was cut, the crop must be consid- 

 ered as exhausting. 



5. Other divisions may be made — as of plants cultivated for their 

 fibre, as hemp and flax, both of which are exhausting to land, though 

 for hemp, the strength of the soil maybe kept up by heavy manuring ; 

 but flax is eminently exhausting, especially if it comes under another 

 division of plants, raised for their oil, when the seeds ripen, and little 

 or no manure is made from the plant to return to the soil. 



Naked, or open fallows, are introduced very properly in a rotation 

 when from the hardness or roughness of the soil, from the introduc- 

 tion of perennial-rooted weeds, or from other causes, it becomes 

 otherwise difiicult to prepare the ground by a hoed crop, for success- 

 ful subsequent culture. Where land is cheap and labor dear, open 

 fallows may often be the cheapest means of eradicating annual weeds, 

 but for rich and high priced land, they are mostly bad economy. 



From the preceding facts, the following general rules may be 

 deduced : — 



1. The same or similar crops should not follow in succession, but 

 return at periods as remote as practicable. 



2. Crops requiring thorough tillage, should alternate with those 

 admitting of only partial tillage, and summer fallows substituted 

 where such crops cannot be raised. 



3. Crops favoring the growth of weeds, should not follow in suc- 

 cession. 



4. Crops which eminently exhaust the land, should come in rarely, 

 and those which exhaust but little should be introduced as frequently 

 as circumstances will admit. 



5. Crops whose consumption copiously returns manure, should 

 occur sufficiently often to keep up or increase fertility. 



It now remains, as the object of this essay, to fput the preceding 

 principles and rules into practice, by pointing out the errors of bad 

 rotations, and endeavoring to suggest better, which may be adapted 

 to our own State. 



All farming may be regarded as some kind of rotation, either regu- 

 lar or irregular, however imperfect it may be, unless there is a per- 

 petual succession of the same crop. There are consequently all 

 grades, from the very rudest and simplest, to the complete, well di- 

 gested, and systematic rotation throughout the farm. Some of the 

 most worthless, as long ago practiced, and still prevailing to a greater 



