410 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



crop year after year, exhausts the soil to such an extent as to make the 

 further cultivation of that particular crop unprofitable. The ancient Eom- 

 ans provided against this by alternating a wheat crop with a whole year of 

 fallowing; that is, their rotation consisted of first year wheat, second year 

 fallow, thus securing but one crop in two years. 



Many portions of the earth which under the ancients were very product- 

 ive, have become exhausted to such an extent as to be almost worthless. 



The large number of inhabitants that Palestine supported under the Jews, 

 is the wonder and admiration of all modern travelers, who are struck with 

 the ruin and desolation that marks the country to-day. 



Time was when to sow a crop of wheat in California was a sure founda- 

 tion of future profit, but steady cropping, without just compensation for the 

 elements removed from the soil, steadily reduced the yield, until other 

 means had to be resorted to, to maintain its record as a wheat producing 

 state. But we need not go to California, nor to ancient Kome, nor to Pales- 

 tine, to find evidence to maintain our position, for we can find it at the pres- 

 ent time, in our own State. By a careful study of the reports of the Secre- 

 tary of State, you will find that the counties in which are cultivated the 

 greatest variety of crops, almost invariably produce the greatest average 

 yield per acre, of each crop cultivated. 



It is unnecessary to multiply evidence to show that some method of rota- 

 tion of crops is essential to the best results, for it is apparent that when the 

 soil is exhausted, in a measure, of the elements necessary to grow one partic- 

 ular crop, it may be rich in the elements which enter into some other crop of 

 s different nature, and the growing and cultivating of the one may be 

 arranged many times with reference to fitting the ground for the others. 



What is the system best adapted to our wants ? This a question that each 

 must decide largely for himself, as there are so many things to be taken into 

 account, such as soil, climate, markets, the amount of available manure, the 

 amount of live stock kept, the likes and dislikes of the husbandman, etc. 



There are two general systems of rotation, the fixed, and the variable, 

 both of which have many advocates. By the fixed, is meant that system in 

 which the crops succeed each other in regular order, and by the variable, 

 that in which there is no regular order of succession. Most writers when 

 speaking of a rotation of crops refer to the former, and would hardly admit 

 that the latter method had merit enough to entitle it to be classed as a sys- 

 tem. In favor of the first system, it is argued that it not only maintains the 

 fertility of the soil, but divides the farmer's work in such a way as to enable 

 him to accomplish the most in the course of the season, gives him a liberal 

 supply of all kinds of crops, and even in a season unfavorable to one crop, 

 that others of an opposite nature will, by an extra yield, maintain the 

 average for the year. Those favoring the variable system, claim that it 

 enables the farmer to treat the different fields of his farm to that kind of 

 cultivation to which each is adapted, thus avoiding the necessity of planting 

 a field with a crop which is not suited to that particular kind of soil. It 

 enables him to take advantage of the different seasons and circumstances and 

 the variation in price, thus securing an abundance of those crops that pay 

 the. largest profits, and at the same time by a judicious management in the 

 arrangement of the succession of dissimilar plants the fertility of the soil 

 may be sustained. They affirm that in the former system the map or chart 

 of his rotation is the only thing to be consulted in deciding what to plant. 



