1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



ec9 



No. III. 



Application of the principles of the rotation of 

 crops. 



There is pcart-ely any coiidiiioii ofagriculture, in 

 the least deirree acivanced, or improved in opera- 

 tion, which is not based on some rude system ol 

 rotation, or succession of crops in a certain order. 

 It has long been known, and ahnost universally 

 acted upon, that, as to grain crops at least, the 

 same kind could not be produced successively on 

 ihe same land, without a rapid decline of product, 

 from some other cause or causes besides the mere 

 lesseniiiiT of the tertility of the land. For when 

 land so treated, and so reduced in product, was put 

 under some other crop, the product ol such other 

 crop was greatly better. Tiierelbre, except in the 

 earliest and rudest cultivation of a new country, 

 no where is there to be (oimd cultivated the same 

 grain crop, lor many years in succession, without 

 the interposition of some other crop, of otlier grain 

 or of grass. Cotton is the only tilled large crop in 

 this country which has not been alternated with 

 other cultivation, and which is tended for years to- 

 gether on the same land. Tiiis practice is recnni- 

 meiided by the clean condition ol'the land required 

 by that crop, and which its repeated culture se- 

 cures. But it may well be doubted whether the 

 diseases and enormous losses of |iroduct in tiiis 

 crop, are not to be ascribed to its being continued 

 so long on the. same land. 



But thouirh every farmer uses eomething of a 

 rotation, still the most usual courses of crops are 

 very imperlect and highly objectionable ; and there 

 is scarcely any scheme of rotation which does not 

 ortend greatly, in some of its features, against the 

 correct principles or theorj' of rotation. 



The lact of the certain and rapid decline of pro- 

 duct of any one crop repeated year alter year on 

 the same land, was universally conceded, and the 

 practice generally abandotied, by practical cultiva- 

 tors, without their troubling themselves to investi- 

 gate the causes. Theoretical and scientific agri- 

 culturista have enteitained ditferent views at dif- 

 ferent times, and each has had its reign. For- 

 merly, it was supposed, and generally admitted, 

 that each plant drew (rom the soil some lood pe- 

 culiar to itsellj and thus rapidly exhausted the soil 

 of this its own peculiar nutriment, while there still 

 remained unconsumed, and in tibundance, the lood 

 to support plants of other kinds. But though tiiis 

 theory passed current lontr, without dispute, be- 

 cause it served to explain the etiects produced, it 

 was gradually weakened, and finally overthrown, 

 by later and more correct views of the nature of 

 the lood of plants. It is but within the last lew 

 years that a new and opposite doctrine has been 

 started, which is at least the most in fashion nt 

 present, if not the most generally received. This 

 is Ibunded on the discoveries of Macaire, De Can- 

 dolle, and Towers, of the excretions of plants by 

 their roots ; and the inference thence drawn, that 

 Ihe rejected excrement is fit to serve as fiiod lor 

 other plants, but if3 useless, if not absolutely hurt- 

 liil, to the kind from which it was thrown off. 

 And hence also would follow the necessity for a 

 chanue of crops. 



Without denying or advocating either of these 



doctrines, I will yet add to whatever may be the 



main cause which calls for a frequent change ol 



crops, another cause, of" at least very considerable 



Vol. YH-77 



operation, and which has been already named in 

 the first of these numbers. This is, that every 

 |)lant is subject to be preyed on by its own peculiai' 

 tribes of insects, which are continued to be sup- 

 plied by tiieir proper food, and fiivored by the still 

 continuing circumstances of the field, and there- 

 lore are increased continually in numbers, and in 

 their destructive ravages, so long as the crop wliicfi 

 Itid them, and the circumstances which lavored 

 them, remain unchanged; and that these insects 

 must be destroyed, or greatly reduced in their 

 numbers and powers of mischief, by a total change 

 of the growth, and of the treatment and condition 

 of ihe field. Perhaps these depredators may be 

 invisible, from their minute sizes, and yet so nu- 

 merous as to cause any extent of injury that is 

 found to be suffered by unchanged tillage of any 

 one crop, and which is avoided by convertible hus- 

 bandry, or a rotation of crojjs. 



But luckily, though the causes of such evils 

 may be uncertain, the effects and the remedies are 

 not therelbre unknown. And the observations of 

 both scientific and practical agriculturists have 

 served to establish what liave been termed the 

 principles of the succession of crops, which furnish 

 a body of rules by which to lest every particular 

 scheme, and show its advantages and defects. 

 But though most of these principles and the rules 

 Ibunded on them are universally received, still 

 perhaps every writer and reasoner upon rotations 

 diUers in some important respect from all others ; 

 and my own views, and still more the rules and ap- 

 plications Ibunded thereon, which have been and 

 will be offered in these numbers, have no authori- 

 ty, either in previous precepts, or e.xamples of 

 practice. The adoption of the above named and 

 new reason lor a rotation of crops, would alone 

 require the introduction of new ,-ules in determin- 

 ing a proper order of succession, and a considera- 

 ble departure from the stated rules prescribed by 

 any previous writer on this subject. But thougfi 

 the principles and rules laid down by every mo- 

 dern and well informed agriculturist may ftave dif- 

 lered in some respect from all others, and even if 

 all were wrong as to the main cause of Ihe neces- 

 sity of changing crops, still all were richt, in the 

 main, in their general precepts and rules of ordi- 

 nary procedure. 



But thoutrh many scientific writers have laid 

 down the principles of proper successions of crops, 

 and all modern agriculturists in writing, or in 

 practice, have advocated particular rotations, still 

 scarcely any two agree fully in their rules; and 

 agreement in practice seems more the resiilt of old 

 custom, and neiirhborhood example, than of think- 

 ing and reasoning. It is manifest that no particular 

 course of crops can be prescribed as the be^t lor 

 an extensive agricultural region, nor even for the 

 fields of different soil on the same li.rin, nor lor the 

 different conditions, at different times, of even the 

 same field. It is as ranch quackery to direct the 

 same rotation for an extensive region, as it is to pre- 

 scribe the same medicine lor all diseases. Wlien 

 we hear of a particular rotation (no matter what,) 

 being generally pursued throughout a large dis- 

 trict, it is pretty good evidence that the rule is pur- 

 sued from custom, and not b}^ reason. Some of 

 our best farmers have no regular rotation, though 

 always aiming to observe the sountl principles of 

 the siiccession of crops, by varying the successioa, 

 according to the changes of circumsiances. 



