POTATO CULTURE. 149 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Rotation and Clover. 



You all know, of course, why a rotation of crops is needed ; 

 why we can -not to advantage grow potatoes right along 

 year after year on the same ground. The land gets tired of 

 growing one crop only. The ingredients used by it become 

 exhausted, or some of them do, and then enemies to the crop 

 increase greatly when it is grown continuously without 

 change. A short rotation, where each crop occupies the 

 ground but a single year, helps greatly about warding off 

 damage by all the various pests. They hardly have a chance 

 to get a foothold before their feeding-ground is torn up, and 

 perhaps a crop put in that they do not like. Such troubles 

 as the scab and blight are doubtless made worse by growing 

 crop after crop on the same land. But a great advantage 

 that comes to us from rotation is the chance it gives us to 

 bring in what is called a renovating crop once in from three 

 to five years. A renovating crop is one that gathers up fer- 

 tility and leaves the soil richer than it was before, in avail- 

 able fertility. Clover is our. most practical plant for this 

 purpose in this locality, and over a large part of the country. 



There are many thousands of farms in this country where 

 far greater prosperity would come from systematic attention 

 to this matter of rotation and clover-growing, whether pota- 

 toes are grown or not. In the far East they grow grass 

 (some clover in it perhaps) too exclusively oftentimes. Land 

 is left seeded, and mowed till it hardly pays for the labor. 

 In the West there has been too much continuous grain- 

 growing and too little seeding down. And, again, in travel- 

 ing thousands of miles both east and west, month after 

 month, I could not help noticing that most fields are seeded 

 with timothy and comparatively few with clover. -Well, it 



