THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



177 



state of productive ferliliiy. I say productive fer- 

 tility, because 1 have seen a great deal of land 

 that was seemingly rich, but would not produce 

 heavy crops of grain, and I believe for the very 

 reason that it wanted the animalized matter and 

 the compactness which the hoof gives it. It be- 

 ing now admitted, I believe, by most judicious 

 farmers thai applying manure on the surface and 

 on grass land is the preferable way of using it, 

 ray friend proposes applying all his winter-made 

 manure to the clover lieid the spring after it is 

 sown. The summer cow-pens would of course 

 be on the pasture fields intended for fallow that 

 fall, which being cleansed of a number of pests 

 by grazing and ol' all over-luxuriant vegetation, 

 wiih a handsome sprinkling of manure all over the 

 field, and the land, if light, rendered compact, and 

 if stiff, the sponginess removed by trampling, will 

 by September be in a fine stale for the plough, 

 and, I should think, of productiveness /or the 

 wheat crop. We all know that corn will grow 

 well after wheat, but it is very rarely that wheat 

 ever succeeds after corn. And the reason is very 

 manliest; because in the cultivation of the corn 

 crop, all the produciive powers of the land are 

 brought into aciion, and the wheat following im- 

 mediately after, before the land has any time to 

 rest from the draught of the most exhausting crop 

 we grow, the natural result must be an indiffer- 

 ent crop of wheat. Whereas, by following wheat 

 with corn, the wheat does not exhaust the land 

 as much as corn, and we have the whole of the 

 aftermath of stubble, clover, grass, weeds, &c., to 

 turn in, as well as giving the land eight monihs 

 to recuperate its soil on or near the surface. 

 None ol these advantages are derived by the 

 wheat afier corn. I am aware it is considered 

 bad husbandry in all-lhe good larming districisin 

 Europe to follow one grain crop with another, and 

 1 dare say it is ; but still i have generally seen 

 corn succeed very well after wheat, particularly 

 on good land, li strikes me this proposed rotation 

 of my friend has but one objection to it, and that 

 may be a fatal one, viz.: the doubt of the success 

 of the clover, alter corn. But he is sanguine of 

 success on good land that has been marled. Bui, 

 as I before observed, I would not advocate this 

 system to the exclusion of the five or six-field 

 rotation on other than lands naturally much bet- 

 ter adapted to corn than wheat, and that to > on 

 navigable water, or very contiguous to market. 



Having dwelt much longer on this part of the 

 subject than 1 had intended, we will now pass on 

 to the five-field rotation, which is more particu- 

 larly the subject of inquiry of your correspondent 

 N., and the only one I intended at first to touch 

 upon in this communication. N. says he has 

 " unconditionally made up his mind to adopt the 

 five-field rotation," and therefore, if I had the 

 disposition, it would be useless to attempt to di- 

 vert him from it ; but in this I have no wish ; as 

 from some years' experience I can highly retom- 

 mend it, as at least a profitable and improving 

 rotation. I will not say it is preffrable to any 

 other, or to the six-field rotation ; but I know that 

 in a few years a farm may be made to double its 

 production. But to proceed more directly to an- 

 swer his queries respecting the choice of'the two 

 methods pursued by himseU; and that of Mr. 

 Wickham, or tht= common five-field rotation as 

 pursued by most persons who have adopted that 

 Vol. X.~23 



number of fields, I unhesitatingly answer, afler 

 some experience with both, that 1 prefer the lat- 

 ter, or Mr. Wickham's plan. I have tried the pea 

 fallow two years afier corn, both by cultivating 

 them and sowing broad-cast, the latter moderate- 

 ly, and very thick ; but it all would not do, the 

 crab grass, {Digitaria sanguinatis,) took posses- 

 sion, and the most indifferent wheat in the field 

 was on the pea land, and no clover followed. In 

 00- case 1 sowed the clover seed, and in the other 

 there ought to have been plenty of seed in the 

 land ; but in neither case was there any product. 

 Again, another, and I think a more important ob- 

 jection to N.'s rotation is, there is no time or 

 space for grazing, which with N. I hgld to be in- 

 dispensable on all lands that I hpve yet seen cul- 

 tivated ; superadded to thia, are the objections 

 urged by N. himself— the expense and labor of 

 the pea fallow. Now, as regards the objection 

 urged by Mr. Harrison to the five-field rotation, 

 that it would become too (bul, I can answer experi- 

 mentally, to what probably was advanced by him 

 as an opinion, there is no danger, 1 can assure 

 him of his land not becoming too foul under that 

 system, but the reverse is the fact, that it is decid- 

 edly more cleansing than the old three-field, as the 

 summer fallow is far more effectual in rooting out 

 the briers, shrubs, &c. than winter grubbing 

 and grazing. The filth year I have found suf- 

 ficiently cleansing for all good farming purposes, 

 indeed I think you will find it much more so than 

 the five- field rotation, embracing the pea fallow. 

 The second objection, as suggested by Mr. Selden, 

 I think you will also find a speculative one, as 

 i never sow clover on fallow wheat, and so far 

 I have always had a good crop. But you must 

 understand me, though, all this time as speaking 

 of marled land, as I suppose he was, as our lands 

 without calcareous matter are in the general too 

 poor lor good larming in any way. 



To the third objection, that of rendering the 

 land too close and compact, by trampling the 

 year before corn, I would say, it will not I think 

 be found to bold good upon trial, as 1 think, upon 

 such land as N. describes his to be. He will 

 make a decidedly better crop, by grazing than 

 upon a foul field. From some experience in both 

 of the five-field rotations, I should decidedly 

 prefer the No. 2 of N., or Mr. Wickham's. 

 There are two, and only two objections to the 

 five-field rotation that I am aware of, and they 

 might not be applicable to all farms or situations, 

 as to mine ; the first is, that of small grain crops 

 following the corn, and the next is, that with me 

 one fifth did not give me pasture enough to ena- 

 ble me to keep stock sufficient for the use of the 

 frtrm ; and if we are to waste as much land in a 

 piny old field, to be called a standing pasture, 

 we had as well m.ake a sixth field, and bring it 

 in regular rotation of cultivation. This latter 

 rotation I think, on lands adapted to wheat, and 

 not immediately available to navigation or to 

 market, is decidedly the preferable rotation of any 

 of the Ibregoint^. If I adopt the eix-field system, 

 I would say 1st, corn, 2J, clover sown afier corn, 

 3d, wheat, 4th, clover, 5th, clover, the two last 

 to be grazed buf not two heavily, 6th, wheat. 

 By this system one field might be manured an- 

 nually, and so the whole farm once in six years. 

 As to the quantity of land cultivated, it would be 

 the same with the olS or Arator four-field systemj 



