296 



Rotation in Crops— Peach Trees. 



Vol. II. 



Forllie Kaniiei-3' Cabinet. 



Rotation of Crops. 



System is as important in fiirming as any 

 other business ; without it, contusion, disorder 

 and loss will be the inevitable result. Fifty 

 years ago there was no regular, rational sys- 

 tematic'rotation of tanning pursued in what 

 are now the best cultivated districts of Pen'a. 

 The consequence was a regular and constant 

 deterioration of the soil, producing less and 

 less annually, till starvation and want seemed 

 to be inevitable, in many sections of country, 

 that are now in a very high state of cultiva- 

 tion. The introduction of red clover, and^ 

 plaster of paris, with a judicious rotation of 

 crops gave rise to the astonishing improve- 

 ments which have taken place within forty or 

 fifty years. The soil gradually became en- 

 riched and regenerated under the improved 

 system, and its increased products enabled its 

 owners still further to add to its fertility ; and 

 how far this plan of progressive improvement 

 is capable of being earned, has never yet, that 

 I have ascertained, been determined ; but many 

 of us have lived to see farms, that yielded but 

 a very scanty support to a single tamily, un- 

 der the old way of cultivation, now not only 

 support in alfluence, three, four, or five fami- 

 lies, but furnish the means of enriching them 

 all, by the adoption of the modern improve- 

 ments in agriculture. Recently meeting with 

 an intelligent farmer from the lower part of 

 Delaware state, and tailing into conversation 

 with him on the subject of a proper rotation 

 of crops, I was not a little surprised to tind that 

 the system which with us has enx-iched both 

 the soil and its proprietor, should not have found 

 its way into that part of our conimon country; 

 but that the old plan of empoverishing the 

 land and diminishing the resources of its own- 

 er should still at so short a distance from us be 

 pursued to a very ruinous extent. At the par- 

 ticular request of my friend, who informed 

 me that you had many subscribers in his vi- 

 cinity, I consented to furnish for your Cabi- 

 net a statement of the rotation of crops which 

 is generally adopted by the best and most 

 successful farmers in the best cultivated parts 

 of eastern Pennsylvania. After a grass or clo- 

 ver field has been mowed one year, and tlie 

 next succeeding year been used for pasture, 

 it is broken up or ploughed, either late in the 

 autumn or early in the following spring and 

 planted with Indian corn, which is cut off in 

 the fall and the tield ploughed as before either 

 in the fall or following" spring, and sowed 

 with oats or barley; and immediately after 

 the harvesting of the oats or barley, the ground 

 is ploughed, manured and sown with wheat. 

 Grass seed should be sowed on the wheat 

 early in the spring, and if timothy is intended 

 to accompany the clover, it had better be 

 sowod in the tall, and the clover, orchard grass 



or herd grass seed sowed early in the spring ; 

 and be sure not to be too sparing of the grass 

 seed, for much loss is often sustained by not 

 putting it on thick enough, particularly as the 

 clover'' in some soils is often injured by the 

 winter frosts, and then it is important to have 

 plenty of timothy, orchard grass, or herd grass 

 roots to supply its place. 



The spring following the wheat crop, plas- 

 ter of paris should be applied, say one bushel 

 to the acre, most of our best farmers consider 

 this to produce as great an effect as any lar- 

 ger quantity. This season cut the grass for 

 hay, and the next succeeding season pasture 

 the grass and in the autumn it may be again 

 ploughed for corn the following season, arid 

 proceed with the same round of crops again 

 in the same order ; but if the farm should con- 

 tain a sufficient number of fields, and the grass 

 be well set, it may be pastured a second year 

 before it is broken up for corn. The first is 

 a five year rotation, the latter six. 



The best time for applying lime or marl ia 

 this rotation of crops, is believed to be in the 

 fall, af>er the wheat crop; applied as a top 

 dressing on the young grass or clover. In this 

 mode of application, its effects are very con- 

 spicuous in the increased quantity of grass thi^ 

 first season, and when the sward is broken up 

 for corn the effect of the lime or marl, on that 

 crop, will be much greater than if they were 

 applied to it the same season. 



Agkicola. 



Api-il 24th, 1838. 



Fur the Farmers' Cibiiiet. 



Peacli Trees. 



I am sorry to see it recommended in No. 29^ 

 of your Cabinet, to put coal ashes round the 

 roots oi' peach trees, to protect them fi-om in- 

 sects, fcjome years ago, when living in the 

 country, I obtained peach and plum trees 

 from Philadelphia, and having heard of the 

 use of coal ashes, I applied them as directed 

 by your correspondent. The trees all be- 

 came sickly the first summer, and one died. 



Suspecting that the ashes were the cause^ 

 I dug to the roots and found them all rotten as 

 fir a'sthe ashes reached. Some of my neigh- 

 bors told me that they never applied ashes, 

 whetiier coal or wood, till they might be tho- 

 roughly leeched; that is, till all their causti- 

 city mijht be washed away. 



The method which I subsequently adopted 

 and found both safe and effectual, I learned 

 from one of the first four volumes of the " Ag- 

 ricultural Society." Dig away the earth so. 

 as to lay bare the superficial roots, and then 

 encircle the trunk of the tree with rye straw, 

 the butt ends in the ground ; tie this in seve- 

 ral places firmly to the tree and cover up the- 

 butt ends with the removed earth. The strav> 

 need not be more than one foot long, nor need 

 it be applied very thick.. 



