170 FALLOW CROPS AND 



ted ; during the intervals of tilling the fields, a variety of 

 herbs grew on them, which offered food for animals, and 

 the roots of which, buried in the soil by the plough, fur- 

 nished a great part of the necessary manure. But at this 

 day, when we have succeeded in establishing the cultiva- 

 tion of a great variety of roots and artificial grasses, the 

 system of fallowing can be no longer supported by the 

 shadow of a good reason. The ease with which fodder 

 may be cultivated, furnishes the means of supporting an 

 increased number of animals ; these in their turn supply 

 manure and labor ; and the farmer is no longer under the 

 necessity of allowing his lands to be fallow. The sup- 

 pression of the practice of fallowing is then equally ser- 

 viceable to the cultivator, who increases his productions 

 without proportionally increasing his expenses, and to 

 society, which derives from the same extent of soil a 

 much greater quantity of food, and additional resources 

 for supplying the workshops of the manufacturer." — 

 Chemistry applied to ^Agriculture. 



"It is already acknowledged, that it is only upon wet 

 soils, or, in other words, upon lands unfit for the turnip 

 husbandry, that a plain summer fallow is necessary." — 

 ^ew Edinburgh Encyclopedia. 



" As there is only one good reason for fallowing," 

 says Cooper, in the Domestic Encyclopedia, '^ namely, 

 to destroy weeds, — and as this can be done full as well by 

 fallow crops, that is, by crops that require frequent clean- 

 ing during their growth, no fallows ought to be permitted 

 in a good system of husbandry." 



Before root culture, or the alternation of crops, had 

 obtained any thing like a footing among us. Chancellor 

 Livingston — and we can ask no better authority — satisfied 

 of the great loss of labor and farm-profits by the old sys- 

 tem of farming, drew the following comparison between 

 the advantages of summer fallows and fallow crops, pre- 

 dicated, we believe, principally upon his own practice. 



" I will endeavor," says Chancellor Livingston, " to 

 state the profits and loss of two farmers, each cultivating, 

 besides his meadows, one hundred acres of arable land, 

 one in the usual [old] mode of this country, and the other 

 by the intervention of vetches and clover. 



