PRACTICAL QUESTION FOR US. 149 



what the rotation shall be and what its results. White-root 

 and leguminous crops have all had their place and advocates. 

 They have tried it on the two years, three years, four years and 

 .up to the eleven years rotation, with clean fallow and without, 

 with turnip fallow, fed from the land and without, and the result 

 is, no rotation is successful in preserving the capacity of the soil, 

 unless at short intervals in the course it be well supplied with 

 manure. Where the circumstances of nearness to markets 

 and good supplies of manure favor, the true position of the far- 

 mer is, to consider himself a manufacturer, with the land as 

 his machine, and his manures as the raw material which he is 

 to manufacture into such plants as his market requires. To 

 such a man a fixed system of rotation is of little account. His 

 only care is, to so abundantly supply the raw material as not to 

 work up his machine (that is the soil) into his manufactured 

 product, thus destroying its power of producing the largest 

 quantity and of superior quality. Under other circumstances, 

 as where the farm is removed from markets, and the sources of 

 manurial supply ; where it is necessary that its producing power 

 should be sustained from its own resources and those of its cul- 

 tivator, a well settled intelligent system of rotation, a working 

 together with the elements and principles of nature to sustain 

 the fertility of the soil, is necessary. But what can crop rotation 

 do for the farmers of Massachusetts, and what shall that rota- 

 tion be, are the practical questions which it is needful for us to 

 solve. 



I answer, first, rotation can aid, and only aid, those farms 

 which circumstances require shall be self-supporting so far 

 as preserved fertility are concerned. No system of rotation 

 can be devised, as the best for all the circumstances of soil, 

 climate and market ; but a system must be adopted to comport 

 with all these varying circumstances, with the tastes of the 

 individual, and the home wants of the farmer's family. 



The circumstances of the country are such at the present 

 time, and probably will be so in the long future, that the three 

 great leading agricultural pursuits of our people should be, the 

 growing of vegetables, small fruits and garden products for a 

 home market ; the growing of dairy stock, and the production 

 of all dairy products, and the cultivation of tobacco. A large 

 portion of the farms of Eastern Massachusetts, as well as those 



