Book VT. ROTATION OF CROPS. 737 



Sect. I. Of the Rotations of Crops suitable to different Descriptions of Soils, 



4549. The proper distribution of crops, and a plan for their succession, is one of the 

 first subjects to which a farmer newly entered on a farm requires to direct his attention. 

 The kind of crops to be raised are determined in a great measure by the climate, soil, 

 and demand ; and the quantity of each, by the value, demand, and the adjustment of 

 farm labor. 



4550. In the adjustment of farm labor, the great art is to divide it as equally as 

 possible throughout the year. Thus it would not answer in any situation to sow exclu. 

 sively autumn crops, as wheat or rye ; nor only spring corns, as oats or barley ; for by so 

 doing all the labor of seed-time would come on at once, and the same of harvest work, 

 while the rest of the year there would be little to do on the farm. But by sowing a 

 portion of each of these and other crops, the labor both of seed time and harvest is divided 

 and rendered easier, and more likely to be done well and in season. But this point is 

 so obvious as not to require elucidation. 



4551. The succession or rotation of crops, is a point on which the profits of the farmer 

 depend more than on any other. It is remarked by Arthur Young, that the agricultural 

 writers, previously to the middle of the eighteenth century, paid little or no attention to it. 

 They recite, he says, courses good, bad, and execrable, in the same tone; as matters not 

 open to praise or censure, and unconnected with any principles that could throw light on 

 the arrangement of fields. The first writer who assigned due importance to the subject of 

 rotations seems to have been the Rev. Adam Dickson, in his Treatise on Agriculture^ 

 published in Edinburgh, in 1777 ; and soon afterwards Lord Kaimes, in his Gentleman 

 Farmer, illustrates the importance of the subject; both writers were probably led to it by 

 observing the effects of the Norfolk husbandry, then beginning to be introduced to 

 Berwickshire. But whatever may have been the little attention paid to this subject by 

 former writers, the importance of the subject of rotations, and the rule founded on the 

 principles already laid down, that culmiferous crops ripening their seeds should not be 

 repeated without the intervention of pulse roots, herbage, or fallow, is now " recognised 

 in the practice and writings of all judicious cultivators, more generally perhaps than any 

 other." (Edit, of Farmer's Mag.) 



4552. The Si/stem of rotatioyis is adopted for every soil, though no particular rotation 

 can be given for any one soil which will answer in all cases, as something depends on 

 climate, and something also on the kind of produce for which there is the greatest market 

 demand. But wherever the system of rotations is followed, and the several processes of 

 labor which belong to it properly executed, land will rarely get into a foul and exhausted 

 state ; or, at least if foul and exhausted under a judicious rotation, " matters would be 

 much worse were any other system followed." 



4553. The particular cro]xs which enter into a system of rotation must obviously be such 

 as are suited to the soil and climate, though as tlie valuable author so often quoted ob- 

 serves, " they will be somewhat varied by local circumstances ; such as the proximity 

 of towns and villages, where there is a greater demand for turnips, potatoes, hay, &c. 

 than in thinly-peopled districts. In general, beans and clover, with rye-grass, are inter- 

 posed between corn crops on clayey soils ; and turnips, potatoes, and clover and rye-grass, 

 on dry loams and sands, or what are technically known by the name of turnip soils. A 

 variety of other plants, such as pease, tares, cabbages, and carrots, occupy a part, though 

 commonly but a small part, of that division of a farm which is allotted to green crops. 

 This order of succession is called the system of alternate husbandry ; and on rich soils, or 

 such as have access to abundance of putrescent manure, it is certainly the most productive 

 of all others, both in food for man and for the inferior animals. One half of a farm is, 

 in this course, always under some of the different species of cereal graminaj and the other 

 half under pulse, roots, cultivated herbage, or plain fallow. 



4554. But the greater part of the arable land of Britain cannot be maintained in a 

 fertile state under this management; and sandy soils, even though highly manured, 

 soon l)ecome too incohesive under a course of constant tillage. It, therefore, becomes 

 necessary to leave that division or break that carries cultivated herbage, to be pastured 

 for two years or more, according to the degree of its consistency and fertility ; and all 

 the fields of a farm are treated thus in their turn, if they require it. This is called 

 the system of convertible husbandry, a regular change being constantly going on from 

 aration to pasturage, and vice versa. 



4555. Not to repeat the same kind of crop at too short intervals is another rule with 

 regard to the succession of crops. Whatever may be the cause, whether it is to be . 

 sought for in the nature of the soil, or of the plants themselves, experience clearly proves 

 the advantages of inti'oducing a diversity of species into every course of cropping. When 

 land is pastured several years before it is brought again under the plough, there may be less 

 need for adhering steadily to this rule; but the degeneracy of wheat and other corn crops 

 recurring upon the same land every second year for a long period, has been very gene- 



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