TOBACCO, WHEAT, CLOVER. 153 



I can hardly in this regard endorse the sentiment of him who 

 said, " Whatever is, is right ; " but the fact is here, and I have 

 to deal with it now only as an agricultural question. The 

 tobacco-plant is an enormous feeder of all the elements of plant- 

 food, but especially of potash, the various salts of potash, and 

 the organic element of nitrogen. It also requires a fair supply 

 of lime, and a soil of fine physical texture, open, retentive by 

 the power of its organic matter, rather than by that of its clay. 

 Tobacco being the product ultimately sought as the market prod- 

 uct, its cultivator needs only hay and grain as adjuncts to its 

 cultivation, to supply the needed fertilizing material and a few 

 products for home family consumption. A tobacco farm cannot 

 well produce this crop, and large quantities of grain, especially 

 of the coarser kinds. These must therefore be purchased of 

 those who are bound to sell them at the West, but the hay must 

 be produced at home. Science fully demonstrates, from the 

 feeding nature of the two plants, (and practice has over and 

 over again verified the demonstration) that tobacco and wheat 

 are the plants which should follow each other on the same soil. 

 Wheat thrives hardly so well anywhere else. 



The rotation in this culture, taking into account all the cir- 

 cumstances surrounding it, should be tobacco, wheat and clover. 

 First, tobacco not less nor more than two years and treated to 

 barnyard manure and s^me form of potash. Two years, because 

 one year is not sufficient to bring the soil into that fine tilth 

 essential for the best quality of the crop. Not more than two 

 years, that each part of the farm may have in season its due 

 portion of the yard manure. Second, wheat, and the land seed- 

 ed to a variety of grass-seed, but clover predominating. The 

 third year, clover, treated with sulphate of lime. Fourth year, 

 clover and herdsgrass, after which the rotation can be recom- 

 menced. This rotation gives us five crops, the three last of 

 which, at least, are highly important and useful crops, and the 

 first will giv^e a greater clear profit than any other crop which 

 can be as extensively grown in the Commonwealth, and has 

 made but two drafts on the manure heap ; the land also is kept 

 in good tilth and its producing power preserved. 



Gentlemen of the Board of Agriculture : I have endeavored 

 to discharge the duty assigned me by pointing out what, in my 

 judgment, rotation of crops can do for the farmers of Massachu- 



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