AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



into good tilth. The field which was fallowed 

 one year was sown to winter grain the next, and 

 to spring grain the following year, so that each 

 field was cleaned of weeds and brought into good 

 tilth every third year, during which year the field 

 yielded no product. 



This system was in very general use through- 

 out Europe down to the close of the Eighteenth 

 Century, but by that time the industrial and com- 

 mercial population was making such demands for 

 agricultural products that the more intelligent 

 farmers began to think it too great a waste to cul- 

 tivate a third of the arable land each year with 

 no crop growing upon it. A general search was 

 made for a crop which could be grown in place 

 of the bare fallow, and at the same time allow the 

 soil to be cleaned of weeds and cultivated prepara- 

 tory for the sowing of grain. Indian corn had 

 already been introduced in the countries along 

 the Mediterranean, but unfortunately this crop, 

 which is the one grain crop which can be culti- 

 vated successfully while growing, was ruled out 

 by the climate, in the greater part of Europe, so 

 that turnips, potatoes, and beets were resorted to. 

 Besides the root crops, clover was introduced, 

 and the rotation changed into a four-course sys- 

 tem in which roots, summer grain, clover, and 

 winter grains succeeded each other in the order 

 given. On heavy clay soils where the root crops 

 would not thrive beans sometimes took the place 



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