320 WEEDS OF AGRICULTURE. 



rization on heavy soils would enable such soils to produce a 

 root crop with the fallow (as potatoes), and the land uould 

 go to wheat in a better state than without such crop. This 

 argument is true, as far as heacy soils are rich, A great 

 deal of such land, very ill-managed before, by more expense 

 and exertion, has proved the fact ; but this is the same thing 

 as saying that such lands were capable of a better and more 

 profitable rotation. The rule does not extend to cold clays, 

 and especially not to such as are very wet ; so that the anti- 

 fallowists have proved nothing, and fallowing remains an in- 

 dispensable part of husbandry, and will for ever. 



It may, however, be added here, that in many cases of fal- 

 lowing, a summer crop may be taken from off a fallow, with 

 not only advantage to the farmer, but with positive advan- 

 tage to the land, by keeping it shaded from the exhausting 

 effects of the summer sun. It is very seldom that a stiff 

 clayey soil, though fallowed up in the autumn, and well 

 ameliorated by winter frosts, can be sufficiently worked in 

 the spring, and cleared of couch and other root-weeds soon 

 enough to receive a summer crop, to be cleared off before 

 wheat seed time. But with lighter descriptions of turnip 

 land, which may be perfectly cleaned and ready for the dung- 

 cart by the 1st of June (and ultimately intended for fallow 

 wheat), may be very properly sowed with yellow clover to be 

 folded off before wheat seed time ; or with brank, for a crop 

 which will come off early in October. Under either mode of 

 management, the land being shaded during the dry months, 

 will be of signal service to the wheat crop, whether or not 

 any advantage be derived from the stolen crop. 



Repeated and unnecessary ploughings of fallows, during 

 a dry summer, deteriorates the soil much more than is com- 

 monly imagined. The humid riches of a soil are fugitive 

 under a hot sun, or drying air ; and therefore, the less the 

 ground is stirred, if free from weeds, the better it is for 

 future crops. 



A new idea respecting the real use of fallowing has been 

 lately promulgated by some French philosophers, and which 

 is at complete variance with the notion above hinted, viz. 

 that the sun and drying winds draw out the best qualities of 



