54 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



tion. This plan has been abandoned ; a more en- 

 lightened system of agriculture has succeeded ; and 

 agricultural products have in consequence been 

 more than doubled. The course of rotation is, in- 

 deed, variable in different districts, both in Europe 

 and in this country, but it is founded on the same 

 great principle — that diflerent plants take up differ- 

 ent ingredients from the same soil and from differ- 

 ent depths, and that a new plant will flourish in a 

 soil where one of the same kind, previously cultiva- 

 ted, could not succeed at all. Thus in England, in 

 Holland and Belgium, in some parts of Germany 

 and France, and, in some few instances, in this 

 country, a regular course of cropping, suited to the 

 soil, has been adopted with the happiest effect. This 

 course, which varies from three to six years, accord- 

 ing to circumstances, embraces roots, grains, and 

 grasses ; and, taken in connexion with thorough 

 manuring, which this system enables the farmer to 

 practise, it not only improves the quantity and value 

 of each kind of crop, but deepens, enriches, and fer- 

 tilizes the soil. Manure and the rotation of crops . 

 are, then, the great means to which we must look 

 to preserve our now fertile plains from the fate 

 which has overtaken so large a part of the East ; 

 and they are fortunately both easy of application 

 and entirely within our reach. 



ROTATION OF CROPS. 



The necessity of a rotation of crops is founded on 

 a few simple principles, the force of which, and their 

 application, any one may understand. They have 

 been very clearly and concisely stated by Chaptal,* 

 and they are so fundamentally important to a cor- 

 rect course of farming, that they should be imjiress- 

 ed on tiie mind of every tiller of the soil. They 

 will, of course, bear repetition. 



» See p. 334, el seq., Chaptal's Chymistry applied to Agricul- 

 ture, Harpers' edition. 



