152 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



cultivated district of Pennsylvania the regular rotation to be, 

 corn, with from thirty to fifty bushels of lime applied to the 

 acre, either in the fall, before the corn was planted, or in the 

 spring, before the sod was turned over ; then followed either 

 oats or fallow, and that fallow was dressed with all the manure 

 that could be made upon the farm, and wheat sowed ; then the 

 third year they had wheat, and with the wheat, in the fall, was 

 sowed a little herds' grass, perhaps six quarts to the acre, and 

 early in the spring, before the frost came out of the ground, 

 clover, so that the fourth year the soil would be occupied by 

 clover ; then the fifth year it would be occupied by herds' grass ; 

 then the sod was turned over again, and corn planted ; and so 

 the regular five-years' rotation goes on. Sometimes they will 

 allow the herds' grass to remain two years, and be pastured the 

 sixth year ; but the regular rotation was a five-years' course. 

 This course kept up the fertility of their soils, so that in those 

 grain districts the average yield of wheat, in a good year, is 

 twenty-five bushels to the acre, and the soil that will yield that 

 amount of wheat is in what is called " good heart." They make 

 farming profitable in all those districts by reason of their follow- 

 ing up this rotation. The rotation in New Jersey is very much 

 like this, only it is often four years instead of five. In such 

 cases the rotation is corn, oats, wheat, and, the fourth year, 

 clover. They sow clover for pasturage, and find that pasturing 

 clover is as good as turning it under in a green state ; for the 

 clover, if allowed to grow, and used for pasturage, forms a largo 

 mass of roots in the soil, which would not be formed if it were 

 turned under in June, when in a state of green luxuriance ; so 

 that what is lost above is gained below. So, all along the line 

 of the Central Railroad, lands have been brought up, by this 

 rotation, from being worth $25 or $30 an acre, as they were 

 thirty years ago, to their present state of fertility, in which the 

 lands are valued at from $150 to $200 an acre. It is difficult 

 to get land, anywhere in that region, short of $150 an acre, 

 and many farms could not be purchased for $200 an acre. A 

 finer wheat district than is found in that region cannot be found 

 anywhere in the country. It is equal to anything in the new 

 wheat-growing regions of the West. Wheat grows with the 

 greatest luxuriance, and it is all accomplished by the skilful 

 use of clover. 



