FARMERS' REGISTER 



185 



THE FIVE-FIELD ROTATION AND GRAZING. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



I have been hiijhly gratified in readinrj the three 

 very able pieces in the February number of the 

 Farmers' Register, under the signatures of Rivan- 

 na, R., and my friend C. Braxton. The gentle- 

 man under the signature of R. has misunderstood 

 me somewhat in my communication in the De- 

 cember number of your Register. He says, "to 

 deprive the land ol"this (clover) its only recupera- 

 tive crop, when it is required to bear three ex- 

 hausting crops in sui-cession, would be to induce 

 sterility without giving check to the evil complain- 

 ed of," (insects,) &c.; but I do not think the fifth 

 year's grazing will have that effect. My idea is, 

 that the grazing year will be a year of rest as well 

 as the fourth year, when the clover is allowed to 

 remain on the ground, though not to the same ex- 

 tent ; for I think that after the clover remains the 

 fourth year on the ground, the grazing the fifth year 

 will do no injury to the land, and yet check the in- 

 sects. The land will be restored by the fourth year 

 of clover, as I have heretofore had it, under the tour- 

 field system, and certainly not injured under the 

 fifth year's grazing ; lor the grazing of good land 

 with tolerably fai stock, (and the land to have fat 

 stock must not be grazed to great excess, other- 

 wise the stock will not be fat,) will rather improve 

 it, than injure it, by returning their dung to the 

 land. By rigid grazing I did not mean crazing to 

 excess, or a naked pasture, but a good bite of clo- 

 ver or any other grass, and tolerably fat slock to 

 return something to the land as well as to bite it 

 off. Under the four-field system I have practised, 

 we have grazed very little, and the clover, weeds 

 and every thing has been turned in the land, until 

 it is now full of vegetable matter, and it is a per- 

 fect bed lor insects; and the winter, in so per- 

 fect and warm a bed, has no effect to kill them. 

 My land is more filled with vegetable matter than 

 most land in our country, in consequence of hav- 

 ing omitted to cultivate corn, or any hoe crop for 

 nine years, while 1 had in cultivation some re- 

 claimed swamj) land, which was alone cultivated 

 in corn as long as the tide could be kept out; and 

 the very pests, blue grass, &c. which R. so much 

 dreads, got the advantage of me for a time, but 

 which I have now conquered by the corn crop, 

 once in four years, and which I think will be kept 

 under by corn once in five years, together with the 

 grazing once in every five years. To Rivanna, 

 with whose communication f was highly delight- 

 ed, I will say, that I think his system a most ex- 

 cellent one, and had thought of adopting a similar 

 one before I saw his communication ; but I have 

 found from experience that clover will not bear 

 much grazing at a year old ; and if I give up my 

 standing pasture, I must have a field which will 

 bear a good deal of grazing. I think it is evident 

 that Rivanna also thinks clover will not bear hard 

 grazing the first year, from his recommending that 

 his two clover fields should be moderately grazed, 

 and not grazed until 20ih June, and should be as- 

 sisted with a standing pasture also, which, in fact, 

 is a six-field system, and one which I should not 

 hesitate to adopt, if I had another field to make a 

 standing pasture of, and did not think that rigid 

 grazing was absolutely necessary to get rid of the 

 multitude of insects with which my land is now 

 filled. The chinch-bug, as yet. is not the insect 



with which 1 have most suffered, and the Hessian 

 fly rarely does us much injury, (when the wheat 

 is sown in good time, and on clover iallovv,) but 

 I have suffiered most from wire-worm, cut-worm, 

 corn-flea, and all the tribe of insects produced 

 by non-grazing and clover-lays. Perhaps 1 mis- 

 called the worm which injured my wheat so much 

 last fall, when I called it a clover worm. It was 

 the wire, or bud worm, which iujures the corn in 

 I he spring so much on clover lands, and that vvaa 

 the reason I called it a clover worm. 1 think the 

 clover, and non-grazing, has produced, or increas- 

 ed the number and variety of grubs very much, 

 at least on my land; for I have remarked in the 

 forest, or ridge-lands in our lower country, where 

 they have little or no clover, and graze, they ne- 

 ver suflisr with grubs of any sort, and find no dif- 

 ficulty in getting their corn to stand. They suffer 

 with Hessian fly, but never with the great variety 

 of insects we have on the river in our wheat. 

 Chinch-bug is a new thing with us, (having had 

 it only two years,) and I did not allude particular- 

 ly to it, when I spoke of changing my system on 

 account of the increase of insects. 



I think the objection to three grain crops in suc- 

 cession in a system of agriculture, is generally ex- 

 aggerated, it the land is good, or if you have the 

 advantage of lime, or marl. At least, I have 

 found that my land improved under it very rapid- 

 ly, and 1 should never have abandoned the four- 

 field system, but for the insects. 1 think it is of 

 not quite the consequence most persons attribute 

 to it, though of some, that ihe crops should be dis- 

 tributed farther apart, provided you give sufficient 

 rest to your land in the course of the rotation; and 

 I think it all-important to let the clover wear out 

 a little before you use the field as a pasture, so 

 that other grasses will put up to bear the hoof, 

 which clover will not do well, and which I think 

 will be effected in the five-shift rotation I propose 

 to adopt. In addition to which the suggestion of 

 my friend C. Braxton, in his most admirable com- 

 munication on the five-shilt rotation, " that the 

 plough should not be again brought into action be- 

 Ibrc the sod is reformed, which will be in two 

 years in land that is in tolerable condition, and 

 this formation of sod is, I think, the test of refor- 

 mation of soil," is most worthy of notice, for I 

 have frequently remarked that when a standing 

 pasture, or a lot, kvhich had been some time in 

 grass, even if poor land, was broken up, it will 

 produce much better for several years than the 

 most sanguine expectation would lead you to sup- 

 pose. I cannot think tiie three grain crops in suc- 

 cession can be so very exhausting, after my own 

 experiment for twenty-odd years, together with 

 that of the two Messrs. Wickham of Hanover, 

 (whose pardon I must beg for introducing their 

 names here,) who have cultivated their estates 

 for some twenty years in the same rotation, and 

 also grazed them much more than I did, (and 

 thereby have kept off insects much more effectu- 

 ally,) and have quadrupled their crops ; for I well 

 recollect when the two estates were cultivated in 

 one, the whole never made half as much wheat 

 or corn, as each of them now makes. It is true, 

 that they are excellent farmers, and use marl libe- 

 rally, which was not formerly done, but if the 

 Ibur-field system with three grain crops in succes- 

 sion was an exhausting one, even with marl, they 

 could not have produced the very great improve- 



