CHAPTER XXII. 



SYSTEM AND ROTATION OF CROPPING. 



" Gardener's, like woman's, work is never done." 



N various occasions in this work I have already- 

 alluded to the necessity of maintaining a strict 

 system of cropping, changing every year, if 

 possible, or with some crops, like onions, at least at 

 intervals of a reasonable number of years. Rota- 

 tion is useful in the prevention of fungus diseases 

 of plants, and in rendering it more difficult for insects 

 to discover our patches of just the vegetables they 

 live on, thus in a measure insuring the safety of our crops. For 

 the latter reason we should not plant vegetables in succession 

 which are subject to the attack of the same insect or insects, like 

 radishes, turnips, cabbages, cauliflower, kohl-rabi and onions. 

 All these are attacked both by the flea beetle and the maggot. 

 Egg plants cannot be safely planted where potatoes were grown 

 the year before, etc. 



Close Cropping. — A system of close cropping, advisable even 

 in the home garden for the sake of keeping it in best order and 

 most attractive all through the season, and the weeds in subjec- 

 tion in a very convenient manner, is absolutely necessary for the 

 market gardener who must make the most of his opportunities. 

 High-priced lands cannot be left to lay idle even a small part of the 

 season. The early peas, and lettuce, and radishes, and spinach, 

 and early potatoes and other first early crops can be followed by 

 cucumbers, melons, celery, spinach, summer and winter radishes, 

 late cabbage, sweet corn, turnips, tomatoes, peppers, sweet pota- 

 toes, or whatever crop having yet time to come to maturity may 

 be thought to pay best. New Jersey gardeners often plant a late 

 crop of common (Irish) potatoes after strawberries. In fact, the 

 ground can, and should, be kept producing some useful crop from 

 early spring until winter, and then it may be made to carry 

 spinach or kale, further south, onions, lettuce, cabbages, etc., either 

 in actual growing condition, or dormant until spring. 



A rotation of crops is also demanded in the interest of strictest 

 economy in feeding them. Different crops need different propor- 

 tions of the food elements, and the same crop grown to the 

 exclusion of others is liable to exhaust the soil of just the 



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