110 THE BOOK OF WHEAT 



excuse extensive methods of farming when the future must be 

 forgotten because of present necessities, when many of the 

 advantages of an older society are wanting, and when the 

 burden of public improvements perhaps falls comparatively 

 more heavily, nevertheless such a course long pursued is not 

 only short sighted and suicidal from the standpoint of the in- 

 dividual, but it is also unjust to the future. 



When extensive methods of farming have once become cus- 

 tomary, changes take place slowly, unless they are necessitated 

 by the growth of population and the exhaustion of the land. 

 These conditions continually repeat themselves in history, for 

 the ancients were already well acquainted with intensive 

 methods of farming. 



Summer Fallows. When land does not produce the usual 

 crops, there is a wide practice of letting it rest one year. No 

 crop is planted, but the land is generally cultivated. This al- 

 most invariably results in an increase of yield during succeed- 

 ing years. It has been claimed that this gain is at the ex- 

 pense of heavy loss in humus matter and available plant food. 1 

 Fallowing encourages the development of nitrates. One of its 

 greatest advantages is that it enables the soil to store up mois- 

 ture for the wheat crop of the following year. 



Historical. The farmers of ancient Egypt rotated crops. 

 The same practice was followed in the time of Virgil, as well 

 as the fallowing of land. The three-field system was not new 

 in England in Norman times. It consisted of wheat the first 

 year, barley or oats the second year, and fallow the third year. 

 According to Gibbins crop rotation was not practiced in Eng- 

 land in the beginning of the sixteenth century, but the triennial 

 fallow was usual in the first half of the eighteenth century. It 

 was known as the "Virgilian" way of farming. Clover and 

 lucern were introduced in the eighteenth century, and brought 

 a new rotation of crops that saved the wasted year during 

 which land used to lie fallow. In the middle of the nineteenth 

 century, rotations were practiced which brought a wheat crop 

 every fourth or fifth year, or twice in 6 years. The Japanese 

 sowed the wheat in rows, and cultivated vegetables between 

 the rows at the same time, in addition to raising other crops 

 before or after the wheat crop on the same ground during the 

 same year. 



1 N. D. Bui. 24, p. 73. 



