90 



BRITISH HUSBANDRY. 



[Ch. VI. 



work, and having found it a very efficient tool, we here annex a drawing 

 of it. 



Chapter VII. 



ON THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 



It has been observed by Lord Karnes, " that no branch of husbandry 

 requires more sagacity and skill than a proper rotation of crops, so as to 

 keep the ground always in heart, and yet to draw from it the greatest possible 

 profit*." Indeed no one, who understands the subject, can doubt that it 

 is one of the very last importance, and so prominent a place does it hold 

 in the art of agriculture, that no better criterion can be found on which 

 to estimate the merits of a farmer, than the course of cropping which he 

 has adopted. Although an adequate degree of knowledge concerning it 

 be seemingly of very easy attainment, and it is verv generally thought to 

 be comprised in the rule laid down by his lordship, — " that it should con- 

 sist of alternate crops, culmiferous and leguminous," — yet in fact no small 

 degree of judgment and experience are necessary to arrange the plant 

 and to adapt it to all the varieties of climate, soil, and situation ; for 

 although it may be an apparently easy matter to follow up an alternate 

 course of white and green crops, yet very little observation will convince 

 any practical man that the general rule mav be strictly observed, and still 

 the system of cropping may be very defective. It is therefore not to be 

 wondered at that many different opinions should be entertained, though 

 all perhaps very much founded upon truth: what being suitable to one 

 case being totally inapj)licable to another, and no general rule being of 

 such a nature that it may not be in some instances judiciously altered, 

 according to the judgment and discrimination of the occupant of the land. 



More stress has, in fact, been laid upon a systematic succession of crops 

 than seems requisite. The great art of cultivation consists in the main- 

 tenance of the land, at least in sound condition and without impoverishing 

 it, if it cannot be enriched ; and it is essentially necessary that the amount 

 of labour, as well as the quantity of manure employed upon the ground, 

 should be dulv ap})ortioned to its quality. The main object of all rotations 

 should therefore be to establish such a series of crops as, bv preventing 

 the too frequent recurrence of any one of those which are considered 

 exhausting, shall guard against the dissipation or loss of those component 

 parts, or (jualitics of the soil, which seem peculiarly adapted to the growth 

 * Gentleman Fanin'r, 5th edit., p. Kifi. 



