ROTATION OF CROPS. 411 



spinach, lettuce, or radishes, &c. Hence, also, beans are planted in the 

 same rows with cabbages (an old practice in the cottage gardens of 

 Scotland), and so on. The great object in this kind of cropping is to 

 have crops on the ground in different stages of growth, so that the 

 moment the soil and the surface are released from one crop, another 

 may be in an advanced state, and ready, as it were, to supply its place. 

 For this purpose, whenever one crop is removed, its place ought to be 

 instantly supplied by plants adapted for producing another crop of the 

 proper nature to succeed it. For example, where rows of tall marrow- 

 fat peas have rows of broccoli between them, then the moment the peas 

 are removed, a trench for celery may be formed where each row of 

 peas stood ; and between the rows of broccoli, in the places where 

 lettuces were produced early in the season, may be sown drills of 

 winter spinach. 



Of these two modes of cropping, the first is the one best calculated 

 for poor soils, or for gardens where the supply of manure is limited ; 

 the second cannot be prosecuted with success, except in soils which 

 are light and extremely rich. It may be proper to observe here, that 

 a system of cropping can be carried to a much higher degree of 

 perfection in a commercial garden, on a large scale, than in a private 

 one ; because in the former whenever one crop is in perfection, it is 

 removed and sent to market at once ; whereas, in a private garden, it 

 is removed by driblets. Hence in small gardens, where labour and 

 manure are of less consequence than economizing the extent of surface, 

 it will often be found desirable to have a small reserve garden, with 

 several frames, pots, and other requisites. As soon as one plant, or a 

 few plants of any crop in a condition for gathering, are removed, the 

 soil should be stirred, and a plant or plants (which should have been 

 some days before potted in preparation) should be turned out of the 

 pot, its fibres being carefully spread out, and water supplied, so as to 

 make it commence growing immediately. The use of potting is to 

 prevent the plant from experiencing the slightest check in its removal ; 

 and in autumn, as is well known, the loss of a single day, by the flag- 

 ging of a plant, is of the utmost consequence. 



Successional and Simultaneous Cropping Combined. The following 

 is from an excellent article on cropping, published in the ' Gardener's 

 Chronicle.' The writer divides kitchen-garden crops into (1) Peren- 

 nial or stationary crops ; (2) Rotation crops, which include all the 

 principal annual crops ; and (3) Secondary crops, such as salads, 

 spinach, &c., which are usually sown in vacancies between rotation 

 crops. 



Order of Rotation. 1st year, peas and beans, succeeded by broccoli, 

 savoys, winter-greens, coleworts, spring cabbage ; 2nd year, carrots, 

 parsnips, beet, scorzonera, and salsafy ; 3rd year, onions, cauliflowers, 

 turnips, succeeded by spinach, spring onions, and other secondary 

 crops ; 4th year, savoys, broccoli, winter-greens, red cabbage, leeks ; 

 5th year, potatoes ; 6th year, turnips, cabbage, broccoli ; 7th year, 

 celery; 8th, French beans, &c. ('Gard. Chron.,' 1841, p. 180, with 

 additions.) 



