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turn over a piece of clover or clover and timothy sod for corn; the next spring the 
field is plowed again and sown to oats or barley; in the fall the ground is again. 
turned over and fitted for winter-wheat, receiving a top-dressing of barn-yard manure. 
The next spring the winter-wheat is seeded to clover or clover and timothy and allowed 
to remain in clover for one to three years, when the foregoing process is again repeated. 
The second course is to spread during the winter all the available manures made upon 
the farm on a piece of sod intended for corn; turn early and harrow thoroughly at 
proper time to plant to corn, then follows the rotation as practiced in the first case. 
Near the large cities the market-garden system prevails, while in the 
rural districts large areas are devoted to dairying and cheese factories. 
In the Jatter the leading aim is to secure as large an amount of forage 
crops as possible. 
Even in those countries where farming is intelligent and systematic, 
there still exists a class of so-called farmers, whose sole method is found 
in a merciless succession of the same crops, generally grain or root- 
crops, with shallow cultivation and little or no fertilization. This 
shiftless husbandry, however, is undermining its own existence, and 
promises shortly to relieve the country of its presence. As the soil 
finally refuses to answer this destructive system with a bare subsistence, 
the farmer sells out in order to “go west” and diffuse the blessings of 
his exhaustive system over a quarter-section of frontier virgin soil. In 
Delaware County, rye and buckwheat have been repeated through a 
whole decade. In Cattaraugus, five to seven successive crops of oats 
are raised year after year. In Chemung County, tobacco crops 
are raised, the leaf, it is said, growing finer and cleaner every year. 
On the cheaper highlands of the same county hay and oats have been 
raised till they would not bring a half crop. Onondaga County seems 
to have measureably got rid of this system, which left large areas covered 
with Canada thistle. In the valley of the Mohawk, crops of broom-corn 
have been raised for thirty years without any apparent exhaustion of 
the soil. 
In New Jersey this class of farmers do not render themselves so prom- 
inent in our reports as in most of the other States. Ina majority of 
the counties, reported rotation is pursued with greater or less regularity. 
The following summary by our correspondent in Cumberland County will 
give an idea of the extent and character of rotation in the State: 
Our farmers are of two classes, grain farmers and truckers; the former class practice 
a five years’ rotation ; they first plow up their sward-land usually in the early spring 
for corn, applying some kind of fertilizer usually in the hill; after the hen-roost 
manure is exhausted, either phosphate or bone dust is used ; the second year the same 
ground is either replanted in eorn, or oats, or potatoes are put in, with a dressing of ° 
barn-yard manure, or for oats a light dressing of some commercial manure, and in 
the fall of the same year, wheat is usually sown in with another coat of manure, sow- 
ing down to grass and allowing it to lay two or three years, the grasses sown being 
usually clover or timothy. The truckers do not usually practice any routine, often 
putting in the same ground, year after year, and dressing heavily with manure. 
The exceptions to rotation seem to be mostly the result of some great 
industry, such as market-gardening or dairying. Cultivation and ferti- 
lization are generally thorough. In Burlington County a considerable 
area in cranberry-marsh indicates the necessity of a constant succession 
in that peculiar product. 
In Pennsylvania but three counties are reported as entirely ignoring 
rotation. In a large portion of the State the system is general if not 
universal. A routine known as the “‘ Pennsylvania rotation” is especially 
noted in Cambria and other counties, which ranges through five years. 
Corn is planted on sod broken in the spring and thoroughly manured. 
Then follow oats,. wheat, and two crops of grass, the wheat being treated 
with super-phosphates. The other systems reported are mostly modifi- 
cations of the above. Our correspondent in Lehigh County develops 
