SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 39 



team was supposed, on the average, to be able to plow in a day. 

 The acre strips belonging to the different families lay side by 

 side, separated from one another only by narrow grass paths 

 called balks. At the ends of a group of these acre strips were 

 unplowed strips called headlands, where the plow teams turned. 

 Thus in the same furlong, or group of acre strips, every family 

 in the village might own its strip, while each family would own 

 similar strips in a great many different furlongs. As suggested 

 abc've, this arrangement was probably for the purpose, originally, 

 of equalizing things by giving each family a share in land of 

 every grade or quality. 



The two-field system. Farmers everywhere discovered very 

 early that continuous cropping tends to wear out the soil and 

 cause it to decline in productiveness. This would lead them, 

 after a few years of cropping, to abandon one field and clear 

 another for cultivation. After a time it was discovered that 

 when a field had been idle for a few years, a part at least of its 

 original fertility was restored. Thus one of the great laws of 

 agricultural production was discovered before the beginning 

 of the historical period, namely, that though continuous cropping 

 will wear out the soil, yet an interval of rest tends to restore 

 its fertility. At first it is probable that there was no system 

 in the practice of cultivating land until it was worn out and 

 then abandoning it. The villagers would cultivate a piece of 

 land until they made up their minds that it would be better to 

 abandon it and clear another piece for the plow. Eventually, 

 however, a regular system was adopted. This is known as the 

 "two-field system." This simply consisted in dividing the plow- 

 land into two parts and growing crops on each part in alternate 

 years, allowing each to lie fallow during the off years. 



The three-field system. This was followed by another dis- 

 covery, namely, that a change of crops does not exhaust the soil 

 quite so rapidly as a continuous repetition of the same crop. 



