AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



demands of the plants instead of trying to adjust 

 the plants, by means of crop rotation, to the 

 chemical content of the soil. 



The old three-field system was the rule in 

 northern and western Europe during the first two 

 centuries of American colonization, yet the bare 

 fallow never became permanently established in 

 the American colonies. The colonists were, from 

 the beginning, well provided with valuable crops, 

 which could be cultivated while growing. In- 

 dian corn and tobacco made the bare fallow un- 

 necessary and practically unknown in this country 

 long before "fallow crops" were generally intro- 

 duced in northwestern Europe. And while our 

 country has greatly expanded, cotton, maize and 

 tobacco have continued to make fallowing unnec- 

 essary in most parts of the United States. In 

 parts of Canada, and in the United States along 

 the northern border, along the Pacific coast, and 

 on the high table lands of the plains these crops 

 will not thrive, and the conditions with regard to 

 available crops are more nearly the same as in 

 western Europe. 



Thus, of the group of competing crops to which 

 Indian corn, cotton, tobacco, and roots belong, 

 the farmers of northwestern Europe have only 

 the roots to select from. It is true that small 

 areas are devoted to tobacco in northern Ger- 

 many, but this is of no general significance. 

 Hence, in Germany, for example, sugar beets 



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