172 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 



crop," and Mortimer said, "The plowing of fal- 

 lows is a benefit to land. ' ' 



One Eoman writer said that the foundation of 

 Eoman agriculture was the fallow. But the fal- 

 lowing as practiced by the Eomans meant plowing 

 and constant and thorough tillage during the fal- 

 low season, which was indeed valuable and a 

 great aid to the business of farming, but as good 

 results can be obtained by the good plowing and 

 thorough tillage and the planting of a crop. The 

 Eoman idea of fallowing was to leave off the 

 crop for a season. 



To fallow really means resting the land or al- 

 lowing land to lie a year or more untilled and un- 

 seeded to any crop. It was simply the old notion 

 that land uncropped for a year was resting, al- 

 though it really was working harder than when 

 growing crops, for when the husbandman turned 

 it over to the supposed rest period, Nature took 

 it in hand and put it to growing weeds. It has 

 never been Nature 's purpose that land should rest 

 unless it was in the winter season. 



Fallowing as practiced by the plowing and til- 

 lage method if continued through a season would 

 likely result in a most wasteful method of farm- 

 ing, especially if the soil had not been deeply 

 plowed and was subject to washing. Heavy rains 

 would seriously damage it. Deep plowing, thor- 

 ough tillage for a short season, supplemented 

 with the good cover crop, will give the best re- 

 sults to soils, for the cover crop supplements the 

 short fallow with the great advantages of soil 

 covering and added fertility that the cover crop 

 gives to the soil. 



