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NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



JULY 80, 1843. 



$ion ; — for it is in the case of llie exception, and 

 in tlial alone, lliat nr.tiire starts upon Iter course i 

 under circiiinstances lilte those in which the far- I 

 mer finds himself every spring. He tool; off his 

 crop in autumn, — that lia'l exhausted in some ] 

 measure his soil : — in the winter, he cut down and 

 carted oft' the oak forest, which had been drawing ; 

 sustenance from the soil and exhausting it. Sprinir j 

 comes, and nature will put on that crop which will ; 

 succeed best where the oaks have been stript away. I 

 What is that crop — oaks? No — but pines: — ro- | 

 tation will be her principle. Our circumstances 

 are like hers. She may here then be our teacher, i 

 And what is the lesson she gives ? ft is rotation : [ 

 rotation whenever we are at work upon soil which i 

 has been impaired by takinj; off" a preceding crop; 

 that is, generally in our farming operations. 



Nature's course, where all her productions are 

 left to perish on the soil, may be our rule when we 

 can afford to leave all our crops unharvested. But 

 80 long as we purpose annually to lay up stores in 

 our barns, and corn bins, and cellars, we must study 

 what nature does where we strip her fields, if we 

 would get the instructions that we most need. 



With Mr Turner's remarks upon nature's course 

 in making a soil, we fully concur; and we are 

 pleased with his article, as we have been with all 

 that we have seen from his pen. It will give us 

 much pleasure to hear from him again and often. 



But the true question for the farmer is not 

 brought out in the discussion thus far — certainly 

 not for the N'orlhern larnier. No good husband- 

 man here over thinks of planting any crop that is 

 to be tilled, without manuring his land for that 

 crop. And the qurstion is, whether, having put 

 six cords of good manure upon an acre in 1842, 

 and planted to corn, it will be better for him in 

 1843 to put six cords more on the same acre, and 

 plant to corn again, or to put some other crop where 

 he had his corn last year, and take a new lot for 

 corn. We are satisfied from our own experience, 

 that more income is derived from an equal exhaus- 

 tion of soil by changing the crop than by repeat- 

 ing. And of another fact we are satisfied, viz ; 

 that there are many fields which will yield more 

 Indian corn the first year of manuring well and 

 planting, than they will the second, even though 

 the manure applied the second year be the same in 

 quality and quantity as the first. This fact favors 

 change of crop from year to year — in other words, 

 rotation. 



Before we received this communication from 

 Mr Turner, we had marked for insertion, the re- 

 marks of Air Ruffin, Editor of the Farmers' Regis- 

 ter, upon Mr 'I'urner's former article. Mr R.'s 

 monthly writings prove that he stands foremost in 

 science among the agricultural editors of the coun- 

 try, and his opinions in regard to Nature's rotation, 

 have our concurrence. — Eu. N. E. F. 



MR RUFFIN'S REPLY TO MR TURNER'S 

 REMARKS ON ROTATION. 

 Mr Turner has (juoled as proof to sustain his 

 opinions, the facts reported to him by several per- 

 sons, that they had cultivated some one or other 

 particular crop for several or n)any years in contin- 

 ued succession on the same ground, without deteri- 

 oration of product, or only such deterioration as 

 was caused by the decrease of fertility, caused by 

 such exhausting tillage. The fact that any pers(m 

 had persevered in so injudicious u course for any 

 length of time, and without learning his error from 

 experience, would show him to be so injudicious a 



farmer as would alone bring his testimony into 

 doubt. We are very sure that Mr Turner will 

 never have such proofs to offer from his own prac- 

 tice. But aihnil all the facts alleged by his infor- 

 mants of their success, and what do they amount 

 to ? Why, merely that, as in thousands of other 

 cases, particular facts hnve contradicted, or have 

 appeared to form exceptions to general rules. And 

 if such apparent exceptions are to be admitted as 

 servins to discredit general rules, then there is no 

 one rule of good farujing tliat cannot be so oppo- 

 sed, and its utility or necessity put down by the au- 

 thority of facts. We have heard of cases as well 

 established by testimony as those stated by Mr 

 Turner, which, if deemed conclusive, would as 

 clearly prove that manuring land did no good to 

 the crop — that purchasing and applying rich town 

 manures brought the neighboring farmer to loss — 

 that marling was injurious to land, &c. In short, 

 there is scarcely any one agricultural opinion, how. 

 ever false and even ridiculous, that has not been 

 sustained by one or more facia alleged by honest 

 and veraciius, though certainly mistaken witness- 

 es. And these particular exceptions referred to 

 by Mr Turner, however apparently successful and 

 profitable, have never been considerable enough 

 or long enough continued, to cause any general 

 practice to be founded on their example. No far- 

 mer, good or bad, has adopted, as a system of cul- 

 tivation, the continuing the same crop on the same 

 ground every year. There are many different ro- 

 tations of crops pursued in Virginia, some few of 

 which are good, or established on sound princi- 

 ples, and very many are decidedly bad and very 

 objectionable. But, whether the rotation be right 

 or wrong, every cultivator aims at some rotation, or 

 change of crops, instead of continuing one alone 

 in perpetual succession on the same ground. 



But universally as is rotation thus approved by 

 practical cultivators, perhaps such testimony may 

 be objected to, (as might many other general prac- 

 tices,) because of the ignorance of most practical 

 cultivators, and the theoretical and visionary views 

 of the more learned. Thereforp, wo are content to 

 put aside all such authority, and to abide by the 

 practice and experience of only one intelligent, ob- 

 servant, practical and successful farmer; and the 

 credibility of that witness shall be beyond doubt 

 or cavil — for we shall summon as that witness Mr 

 Turner himself. 



If no change of crops be necessary, why does 

 Mr Turner follow corn by oats, and oats by grass.' 

 If there be no necessity for, or superior profit in 

 this succession, why not as well reverse the order 

 of these crops, or keep corn always on one field, 

 oats on another, and grass on the remainder of the 

 farm ? If the answer be, that althuugh corn might 

 well follow corn, and oats follow oats, yet that the 

 corn tillage cleans and prepares the ground for the 

 growth of oats, and that the oats shelter the young 

 herdsgrass and clover, this explanation is, in fact, 

 yielding the whole question, and slating good and 

 sufficient reasons for the particular succession sta- 

 ted. 



Mr Turner's rotation is uncommon, and even pe- 

 culiar. Still it is not therefore less a rotation ; 

 and, according to his peculiar position, we had 

 given him credit for having adopted a rotation of 

 very valuable features and effects. We especially 

 admired the plan of two successive crops of corn, 

 (though a different kind of hoed crop might have 

 been better in place of one of them,) though such 

 a repetition might have been a barbarous and 



abominable part of a course of crops at ten miles 

 from a town, or where no putrescent manure could 

 be obtained other than the farm furnished. With 

 Mr Turner, grass for hay is the most important and 

 profitable market crop. Oats is the next in impor- 

 tance, and corn is not worth raising for sale, and 

 only desirable for bread, and as a cleansing crop 

 to prepare the fields successively for grass. To 

 make the most of this cleansing operation, and be- 

 cause he can make up by purchased manure for 

 the double exaction from the field, he cultivates 

 two crops of corn in succession, and thereby makes 

 the ground as clean as possible. Still herdsgrass 

 and clover would not take well immediately after 

 corn ; the shade of oats is required as shelter from 

 the sun, and even the exhausting power of oats, to 

 keep down weeds, and when reaped, to leave the 

 land wholly to the young grass, when nursed to an 

 age to be able to withstand both sun and weeds. 

 The land then remains several years in grass, until 

 weeds have gained the ascendency ; when the crop 

 and tillage of corn again are resorted to, for the 

 purpose of recommencing the same rotation. We 

 merely here present reasons, and aim to show that 

 Mr Turner not only uses a rotation, but one found- 

 ed on sound principles, according to our views of 

 the theory of rotation. The practice — the facts — 

 the merit of the system — are all his own ; and we 

 have so much respect lor his excellent practice, n 

 this respect, that we are content to rely on it alo e 

 to rebut all his arguments against the necessity of 

 rotations, even were his witnesses and particular 

 tacts of exceptions to general rules, ten times as 

 many and as cogent as they are. 



Mr Turner has been singularly unlucky in one 

 case adduced as practical proof of there being nc 

 necessity for a cliange of crops. In this case Na- 

 ture is the cultivator, and her farm " is the world 

 and the crops are the immense forests with whict 

 it is covered" — and Mr Turner adds, " here too i^ 

 no relief from rotation, for the same crop has beei 

 on the land for thousands of years." Now thi 

 actual facts are directly the reverse — and so strik 

 ing, that they have been often cited by writers a 

 proofs of the necessity of changes of growth. Th' 

 ordinary growth of a forest even at the same time 

 is far from being the same crop. There are man 

 different trees, as different in kind, and in thei 

 habits and wants, and products of manure by thei 

 decay, as the different kinds of cultivated grain 

 and grasses. Therefore, even though the compo 

 sition of a forest might appear to be unchanged ii 

 general, for thousands of years, yet it probably i 

 the case that entire changes are perpetually mad 

 in the death and replacing of each tree. For ex 

 ample, a pine may occupy its place for a cehturj 

 and then die, and be succeeded, not by anothe 

 pine, but by an oak, which may stand for five can 

 turies, and then be succeeded by a beech or poplai 

 But Nature is not satisfied with this gradual chang 

 and rotation by mixing crops. When fires, the de 

 predations of insects, inundations, or tillage, ha? 

 completely destroyed a forest growth, another sue 

 ceeding growth is generally of trees entirely dil 

 ferent. Thus, if a forest principally of oak, shorl 

 leaved pine, hickory, dogwood and chinquapin, i 

 lower Virginia, be cut down, and the land suffere 

 to grow up again, (either early or late,) the nej 

 growth of trees will be almost exclusively of pin( 

 and that of a different kind (the " old field pine,' 

 from those which formed part of the previous cove 

 This is a fact notorious to every resident of thi 

 region. In other regions the changes of kind ar 



