124 ECONOMY OF FARMING. 



fallow must be regarded as a species of green-manuring, and the most enigmatical 

 opinion, that in many regions grain is always produced on the fields without manur- 

 ing them, and without that one employs in them any particular heaping up of the 

 old humus, must be partly explained by the green-manuring, by means of the three 

 year-returning fallows. The most convenient time to turn the soil, is when it is in 

 that state of moisture with which it exerts the least degree of cohesion. If it is ne- 

 cessary to give the soil by a repeated ploughing a proper degree of cleanness and loose- 

 ness, yet it is not so, nor even profitable, to turn up the soil in the frequent ploughings 

 to the same depth." — Tr.] 



24. Where the fields are divided into three parts, and one part is left 

 fallow, one part is sown with winter, and one part with summer grain ; 

 this mode of farming is called the Three-field or Three-shift system. 

 (Dreifeld-wirthschaft.) 



25. What method of husbandry will bring the greatest profit in the 

 given situation can only be determined after a close survey of the nature 

 of the soil, the climate, the political and commercial relations. 



26. In general we may assume, that in cold, moist regions with a clayey 

 soil, where the population and the capital employed for carrying on the 

 farm are small, the Koppel-wirthschaft will yield the greatest profit, be- 

 cause the climate and the soil favors the grass-growth, and because this 

 mode of husbandry demands the least expense of power and manure ; but 

 in warmer and dryer regions, and where moreover the value of the soil, with 

 a large population, stands not too low, the system of Rotation of Crops 

 (Frucht-wechsel-wirthschaft) brings the most profit. 



27. The Koppel-wirthschaft brings under the plough all the field which 

 is not watered meadow, or dry and remote pasture-land, and cultivates on it 

 grain, for 2 to 5 years, whereupon it is used as long, or even twice as long, 

 for meadow and pasture. 



28. The object in the employment of the Koppel-wirthschaft is either 

 the rearing of cattle or the cultivation of grain. In the first case, one must 

 draw out the power of the field by ploughing and the raising of grain as 

 little as possible, and employ manure more for the grass than for the 

 grain ; in the second case, one seeks to obtain by his employed manure an 

 increase of grain. In the first case, the fallow becomes a meadow, but in 

 the second case, only a pasture. 



In the mountains of Southern Germany and Switzerland, the Egarten-wirthschafl 

 has prevailed from time immemorial. In what rotations the fields are employed, the 

 following examples may show. 



In Salzburg at Mittersill, 1, winter-rye, manured ; 2, summer-wheat, manured ; 3 

 and 4, grazing-pasture. 



We cannot, in highly situated, cold, and moist lands, bring the winter-fruit into the 

 second year, but must sow it in the fresh, unploughed, grazing-fallow ; then the sum- 

 mer-wheat is removed from the field too late for us even to venture to sow rye. 



If both kinds of grain should be manured, which there is very possible where a 

 small cultivation of the field is joined to great mountainous and Alpine meadows, as 

 well as aided with bog-lilter, then is the product in grain and straw very great, and 

 the grazing-meadows appear like the most luxuriant well-watered meadows. 



In Upper Steirmark at Murau, 1, summer-wheat, without manure ; 2, oats, with- 

 out manure ; 3, winter-rye, manured ; 4, 5, and 6, grazing, or natural grass-growth 

 (Egarten). 



The climate is milder than at Mittersill, wherefore one can sow winter-rye after 

 oats ; but because it is manured only once in six years, though with the grain fruit, 

 therefore the product of the grass-growth (Egarten) is less, indeed scarcely any thing, 

 in a third year, than a good pasture. 



