324 [Senate 



additional loss of time and capital must be chosen. In England, 

 Germany, and all countries where the climate is similar, and the sea- 

 son for harvest and seeding limited to one or two months, fallows are 

 common ; but where the climate and seasons are different, and more 

 time for preparing the soil allowed, as in the south of France, the 

 fertile plains of Spain and Italy north of the Po, fallows are almost 

 unknown. 



It seems clear, then, that in the northern and middle States, compri- 

 sing the wheat-growing part of the Union, the system of fallowing 

 must be adopted and continued, or a course of cropping preferred, 

 which shall give the avantages of fallow, without the attendant losses. 

 We think we have shown how this may be done, but the methods 

 pointed out are the only ones in which a successful rotation may be 

 pursued. Root crops may be substituted for the maize or the clover, 

 and where land is not free from weeds prejudicial to a wheat crop, a 

 crop that requires careful hoeing, and a consequent thorough cleaning 

 of the soil, may be preferred to any other, reference being had at the 

 same time to its means of forming manure,, or the quantity it requires. 



But the propriety of this course does not rest on theory alone; if 

 it did, there might be some grounds for hesitatancy in abandoning the 

 system of fallowing. Experience, in a multitude of instances, has 

 shown that the very best crops of wheat may be grown on lands sub- 

 jected to a more or less perfect system of rotation, without fallows, 

 and with a single plowing only. In this method the necessity of the 

 case demands previous good condition, which is secured by the manu- 

 ring given the corn or root crop, and by the clover. One or two in- 

 stances may be given of the success of this practice, and they shall 

 be for the current year, or 1843, which is known not to have been re- 

 markable for the magnitude of the wheat crop. On the farm formerly 

 owned by Mr, Woodward, of Camillus, Onondaga county, a field of 

 fifteen acres in clover was turned over in October, 1842, and sowed 

 with wheat. This proved the best on the farm, averaging for the 

 whole, thirty-five bushels per acre. Another instance was on the farm 

 of Mr. Dickinson, Onondaga Valley, where the wheat was sown on a 

 clover sod, after a single plowing, and the measured yield from one 

 acre, was fifty-two bushels and eight quarts, and on several other acres, 

 the yield would not have fallen much, if any, short of the measured 

 one. Such examples might be multiplied, but it is unnecessary. A 

 single glance at these facts will show the immense difference there is 



