380 



FARMERS' REGISTER— THREE AND FOUR-SHIFT SYSTEM. 



lie mills tor the puri:)ose; but if the machinery is 

 not too costly, many proprietors who have water- 

 power might have bone mills on their own i)lanta- 

 tions, connected with the water wheel oi'a saw, or 

 grist mill. 



Will you permit me, while I express my satis- 

 faction with the general plan and execution of 

 your work, to suggest that you might render it 

 still more valuable by giving your subscribers more 

 frequently your own views of the different im- 

 provements in husbandry, &c. recommended by 

 your correspondents. Your modesty may sug- 

 gest that this might be assiuning too much tor 

 yourselfj but the same objection would lie to every 

 communication you publish Avhich recommends 

 any new practice, or finds fault with old ones. I 

 am persuaded you ^vould most generally be right, 

 and if wrong, your remai'ks would naturally lead 

 to discussions which might lead eventually to right 

 conclusions. 



I have been led to thes3 remarks by the strong 

 and uncontradicted ajjproval by your correspon- 

 dents of the ibur-course system of cropping, in 

 wheat, corn, wheat, clover — three grain crops in 

 four years, and the heavy censure that is cast 

 on the barbarous course of two grain crops, corn 

 and Avheat, in three years, as if two grain crops in 

 three years exhausted the land, and three in tour 

 years improved it. It is true that the latter rota- 

 tioli includes clover, and no one can think more 

 highly of that invaluable plant than myself, but 

 untbrtunately, a very large proportion of us are 

 obliged to cultivate lands naturally too poor, or too 

 light tor clover, and have not the means of fertil- 

 ising them on a large scale, by animal manures or 

 marl; but thinking, as I do, that we can have no 

 good husbandry without clover, I am yet to learn 

 that it would succeed better ailer three crops of 

 grain than after two. The four-shift system of 

 the active and judicious proprietors of the rich mel- 

 low soils of Shirley and Westover, niciy answer as 

 to them, with the aid of animal manures, lime or 

 marl, and standing pastures, but I think M^ould 

 hardly succeed without these helps, on the com- 

 paratively poor lands which most of us are obliged 

 to cultivate. It ought never to be forgotten, that 

 while good husbandry will succeed under a bad 

 aystem, no system however good, will atone for 

 the defects of bad cidtivation. 



You will not understand me as censuring the 

 plan of farming adopted by the gendemen I 

 nave referred to. On the contrary, I am persuaded 

 that it will turn out very well with their good m.a- 

 nagement, with lime or marl, plentiful manuring, 

 and standing pastures sufficient for their stock; but 

 I cannot at present believe it would answer on 

 poorer lands without these advantages. Different 

 rotations of crops are good or bad, not in the ab- 

 stract, but with reference to soil, situation, &c. A 

 Avell considered estimate of the advantages and 

 disadvantages of this mode of cropping on lands 

 that will bear it, and of its effects on soils less fer- 

 tile, or that cannot have the benefit of lime or 

 marl, or a large supply of other manures, would be 

 very desirable, and I trust will ere long be found in 

 your work. 



JOHN WICKHAM. 



[Tlie information requested in regard to the pound- 

 ing or pulverizing bones for manure, will be sougtit, 

 and furnished as soon as obtained. 



The suggestion that the more frequent exhibition of 

 our own views and observations, on many of the va- 

 rious subjects presented in the Farmers' llegister, 

 could not come from a source entitled to more respect, 

 nor to v/hich we should be more ready to yield the ob- 

 jections which have formerly been stated to a general 

 adoption of such a course. 



We agree entirely with our correspondent in his re- 

 mai-ks on the three-shift rotation; and have often won- 

 dered at the very general agi-eement in denouncing it 

 as empoverishing and destructive, and of lauding the 

 four-shift rotation as profitable, and enriching to the 

 soil, without its being kept in view how much each of 

 tliese rotations may be varied, and b.ow widely they do 

 vary in practice on different farms. The old three- 

 shift rotation, of two successive grain crops and the 

 third year of close grazing, is certainly destructive and 

 abominable — but it would have been made still more 

 exhausting, and worse in every respect, if, by the ad- 

 dition of another grain crop, it had been changed to 

 the four-shift rotation, without any other alteration. 

 The three-shift rotation of corn, wheat, and clover left 

 to be ploughed in for manure for the next crop, would 

 certainly make less heavy draughts on the productive- 

 ness of the soil, than the four-shift (including three 

 grain crops,) with no greater supply of putrescent ma- 

 nures. There may be improving or exhausting culti- 

 vation with eitlicr of these rotations: and in this re- 

 spect, neither can be said, as a general rule, to have 

 any superiority over tlie other. It depends on various 

 other considerations — such as the nature of tlie soil, 

 and its greater fitness for wheat, or for com, the facili- 

 ties for furnishing vegetable manures, and their per- 

 manency when applied, Sec. &,c., whether either of 

 these, on some other rotation should be adopted. The 

 four-shift rotation seems to be most advantageous for a 

 farm of soil fit for both corn and wheat, because by 

 omitting or adding a grain crop, the rotation may serve 

 when the improvement of the pooi-est land is just com- 

 menced, and also when the farm has been made highly 

 productive, without altering the number of shifts, or 

 the boundaries of the fields. Either one, or two, or 

 three grain crops may be taken in a rotation of four 

 years, according to the condition of the field: and the 

 first would be enough perhaps to take from land as 

 poor as are most of the long worn fields of Lower Vir- 

 ginia — and the last would be as profitable as would be 

 required, and as scourging as could be borne, when 

 calcareous and putrescent manures and clover had 

 brought the same to the highest state of productive- 

 ness. The same rotation of crops will never suit both 

 poor and rich land — and it is far more convenient to 

 increase the number of grain crops in each rotation, as 

 required by the increased fertility of the soil, than to 

 alter the number of years given to the rotation.] 



CULTURE OF THE VINE IN ROCKBRIDGE. 



To tiie Editor of the Fiirmers' Register. 



Leocington, Va., September 26th, 1834. 



It may not be uninteresting to some of your 

 readers to know that a pretty fair expenment has 

 been made in this neighborhood in the culture of 

 the vine. Eight years ago last spring, one gen- 

 tleman in this neighborhood and myself in con- 



