

THE FARMER AT HOME. 353 



be safely repeated, and no diminution of the plant is apparent. How- 

 ever judiciously the land may be manured, it is not practicable to 

 raise a crop of wheat or clover, or of many other plants on a soil 

 which has shown that, as farmers say, it is tired of the crop ; but 

 clover grows well after .wheat, and wheat after clover, so that the 

 same effect is not produced in the soil by these two crops. In all 

 countries where peculiar attention has been paid to agriculture, the 

 most advantageous succession of crops is generally known ; and certain 

 general principles are commonly admitted as fully established. 



In order to find the crops which may advantageously succeed each 

 other in rotation, many circumstances must be taken into considera- 

 tion. First of all the quality of the soil, and its fitness for par- 

 ticular crops ; next the wants of the farmer and his family, and the 

 maintenance of the stock required to produce a sufficient supply of 

 manure ; and, next the particular market which lies open to him. 

 That which forms the food of man is always the principal object in 

 cultivation ; and, in our climate wheat and maize or Indian corn may 

 be considered the grains that should have prominence, in each rotation 

 among our agriculturalists. Rye, barley, and oats, either as substi 

 stutes for them, or for the feeding of stock, are not to be omitted 

 Next to grain comes meat, chiefly beef, mutton, and pork, of which th< 

 consumption increases with the wealth of a nation and the advance of 

 its agriculture. Wheat, maize, and meat are therefore the primarj 

 objects with every farmer ; and he who can raise most wheat and 

 Indian corn, and fatten most oxen, or sheep, or pigs, will realize the 

 greatest profit. The rotation, therefore, depends on all these con- 

 siderations combined. 



RUST. In Rural Economy, a distemper incident to corn, and 

 generally called mildew. The ancients generally thought that it 

 came from heaven, being ignorant of its true cause. Virgil gives this 

 up as an incurable distemper, and tells the farmer that if his corn is 

 blighted he must live upon acorns, not supposing that any remedy 

 could be devised for such a distemper. Wheat is blighted at seasons, 

 first in the blossom, and then its generation is prevented, many of the 

 husks being empty in the ear, and the rudiments ol the grains not 

 impregnated ; secondly, Avheat is blighted when the grains are brought 

 to maturity ; and in this case they become light and are of little value 

 for making of bread, having scarcely any flour in them. 



Under this term of rust may, perhaps, most properly be arranged, 

 and included, that sort of destructive affection, of grain, which is 

 caused by the funguses and parasitical plants, which fix themselves 

 on and attach themselves to, the stems or other parts of it, so as to 

 diminish, intercspt, or destroy its nutritive properties and qualities. 

 The injury done in this way is often more dreadful than that from 

 any of the other causes, as whole fields have been known to be utterly 

 destroyed, so as not to contain a single grain of wheat in the ear, and 



