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a transition phase of agriculture in Pennsylvania resulting from the 
extension of mining and manufacturing enterprise: 
At present there is no particular system practiced by the farmers here. Especially in 
what is termed the Lehigh Valley farmers have suffered considerably owing to the 
iron business having forced wages to a point beyond which the farmer could not en- 
gage. A revolution in the system of farming has commenced which should have begun 
earlier. Owing to the short crop of wheat and rye for a number of years, low prices 
and high wages, farmers were almost ruined. The great number of hands required in 
the iron business made it apparent that more meat and vegetables should be produced, 
and which are also more remunerative. Our farming community is mainly composed 
of the old German element, who are slowly leaving an old-beaten path for a new un- 
trodden one. A number of our farmers are confining their attention principally to 
corn, grass, and vegetable raising. 
Market-gardening, grazing, and dairying largely interfere with rota- 
tion in different localities, but the class of shiftless, exhaustive farmers, 
though still too numerous, grows small by degrees. t 
In Maryland rotation is very general, though in some districts there 
is a decided tendency to excessive grain and grass cropping. The most 
general order is to begin with corn or potatoes on broken sod, and fol- 
low with one or two crops of small grain, the last being seeded with 
grass. Sometimes the last-named crop is continued till itruns out, and 
the rotation again begins. In Washington County, wheat, on good 
soils, is raised many years upon the same soil freely fertilized with bone, 
phosphates, &c. In Somerset, corn has been raised thirty years with 
little culture. The tendency to repeated croppings is found mostly 
- among small farmers and tenants. Market-gardening and dairying are 
extensively pursued in some localities. 
Of the South Atlantic Coast States, Virginia shows a considerable 
tendency to crop rotation. In several counties a regular system, for- 
merly existing, was broken up by the disasters of the late civil war and 
the change in the labor system. About one-fourth of the counties 
report a somewhat regular routine, embracing: 1. corn; 2. wheat or oats ; 
3. clover; another fourth ignore it entirely, while in the remainder partial 
and dubious efforts are maintained. As aspecimen of the first class the 
following, from Williamsburgh County, may be cited : 
It is practiced by three-fourths of the farmers in this county. What is known as the 
three-field system is being adopted universally, almost, for the old four-field system. 
The second year after cultivation, with or without clover, a dark mold is formed in 
the soil, which will last only one year; and if the farmer fails to turn it in in the 
spring of the third year, he will almost certainly fail in a corn crop. In the following 
summer it is supposed the “acids arise,” and then comes the sage-sod, which soon ren- 
ders the soil very poor. 
Our Nelson correspondent says: 
One of the best farmers here has his farm divided into three fields, and works one 
every year, but turns under once always in three years a good crop of clover; this 
farm is improving rapidly in productiveness and the owner says he is making more 
money than before the war. Some prefer (on the five-shift system) corn, wheat, or 
oats, followed by three crops of clover, other produce in the order of wheat, corn, oats, 
and two crops of clover. For the first of these crops the farmers aim to turn the 
clover sod early in the fall and finish by what we call “fallowing for corn” by 
Christmas. Where clover sod is prepared for wheat a two or three horse turning-plow 
is used in July, August, and sometimes continued into September, when dry summers 
prevent early plowing. Where tobacco is cultivated it is almost invariably followed 
by wheat. 
Henrico presents an example of the non-rotating counties: 
The only pretense at rotation consists of corn first, then wheat or oats, followed by 
clover, which is left, usually, but a single year. If near a city, the clover is cut and 
sold in the market; at a greater distance from a market it is frequently turned under 
after having been pastured off or mown once. But little attention is paid to the land 
in any case. I have seen fields so wet when plowed for spring-oats that the water 
would accumulate in the furrows after the plowman. ; 
