56 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. V. 



i The necessity of fallowing-, when viewed merely as a means of cleansing 

 the ground from weeds, and bringing it to a fit state for the reception of 

 the seed, depends entirely upon the state in which the land may be found 

 after a previous course of tillage ; and therefore, upon some soils, and under 

 different kinds of managem.ent, the repetition of the practice is more or less 

 frequently required than upon others. No really practical man will deny 

 that whenever the soil has become foul, it can be cleaned in no other 

 way than b}^ frequently stirring it during the spring and summer, for the 

 purpose of bringing the seeds of weeds to vegetate, and then destroying 

 them. On light, free soils, having a gravelly subsoil, this can indeed 

 be done by means of green crops, drilled at intervals of sufficient width 

 to admit of the operation of the horse-hoe ; for they can be worked while 

 tliose crops are growing, and on such land tliey are, therefore, generally 

 sown after corn, under that system which has obtained the name of " alter- 

 nate husbandry." But when the soil is of a more stubborn and tenacious 

 quality, incumbent upon a clayey bottom, it is both naturally more subject 

 to become foul than land of a drier and more friable species, and being, 

 from its nature, not adapted to the production of green crops, the farmer 

 has no other resource, when it gets into that state, than to plough and 

 harrow it repeatedly, and thus to effectually cleanse it through the opera- 

 tion of a naked summer fallow. 



This, however, has been denied ; and although tlie operation of pre- 

 paring the land for a course of crops must be admitted to be the foundation 

 of all good husbandry, and therefore might be presumed to be clearly under- 

 stood by every farmer, yet it is not a little remarkable that the most oppo- 

 site opinions are entertained regarding the necessity or advantages of fal- 

 lowing, and that the question, though of the very highest importance to 

 agriculture, both in a general sense and as it regards the profits of cultiva- 

 tion, and treated of by many distinguished writers of the present day, has 

 still been left undetermined. It would, indeed, appear that much of this 

 indecision has arisen with persons who have reasoned upon the subject 

 without sufficient acquaintance with farming to enable them to judge of its 

 effects with accuracy. Thus some argue against the practice, because, as 

 nature docs not seem to require any pause of this kind, but intends the 

 earth to produce uninterrupted crops in every year, the management of the 

 ground should be governed by that supreme law : forgetting, however, that 

 nature does not discriminate between the value of the crops, and that weeds 

 .ire produced as bountifully as grain. Others contend, that the loss of a 

 whole year is a waste of the national resources ; and even men of business, 

 who are not easily led away by such crude premises, yet insist that a year's 

 rent, taxes, and expenses, thus drawn out of the farmer's pocket without 

 return, can only arise from slovenly mismanagement. These, indeed, 

 represent green crops as acting like a spell upon the coffers of farmers, 

 and, being men of figures, they run up such an account of the profits 

 attendant upon them, in opposition to fallows, and state the difference so 

 clearly in pounds, shillings, and pence, that the result is quite astounding, 

 and, so far as calculations go, there is no reason to doubt their accuracy ; 

 yet many of those who have adopted their plans have suffered severely in 

 their pocket*. At the head of these authors stands the opinion of a cele- 

 brated chemist, who says decidedly, as the sum of a treatise upon the sub- 

 ject, " that it is scarcely possible to imagine a single instance of a culti- 

 vated soil, which can be supposed to remain fallow for a single year with 



* See Pitt's Report of Staflfordshlre, p. 50. 



