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PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



wife and children, which ought not to be exceeded. The whole allotted expense should 

 be considerably within the probable receipts ; and, if possible, one eighth of the income 

 annually received should be laid up for contingencies, or expended in extra improve- 

 ments on the farm. 



BOOK VI. 



CULTURE OF FARM LANDS. 



4923. The business of farming consists of the culture of vegetables, and the treatment 

 or culture of animals ; in practice these are generally carried on together, but may be 

 more conveniently treated of apart. In this Book, therefore, we confine ourselves to the 

 culture of vegetable, and shall consider in succession the general processes of culture ; 

 the culture of corn and pulse ; of roots and leaves ; of herbage plants ; of grasses ; and 

 of manufactorial plants. 



Chap. I. 



General Processes common to Farm Lands. 



4924. Among general processes, those which merit particular notice in this place are, 

 the rotation of crops, the working of fallows, and the management of manures. The 

 theory of these processes has been already given in treating of soils and manures 

 (Part II. Book III.) ; and it therefore only remains to detail their application to 

 practice under different circumstances. 



Sect. I. Rotation of Crops suitable to different Descriptions of Soils. 



4925. The proper distribution of crops, and a plan for their succession, is one of the first 

 subjects to which a farmer newly entered on a farm requires to direct his attention. 

 The kind of crops to be raised are determined in a great measure by the climate, soil, 

 and demand, and the quantity of each by the value, demand, and the adjustment of farm 

 labour. 



4926. In the adjustment of farm labour, the great art is to divide it as equally as pos- 

 sible throughout the year. Thus it would not answer in any situation to sow exclusively 

 autumn crops, as wheat or rye ; nor only spring corns, as oats or barley ; for by so doing 

 all the labour of seed-time would come on at once, and the same of harvest work, while 

 the rest of the year there would be little to do on the farm. But by sowing a portion 

 of each of these and other crops, the labour both of seed-time and harvest is divided and 

 rendered easier, and is more likely to be done well and in season. But this point is so 

 obvious as not to require elucidation. 



4927. The succession or rotation of crops is a point on which the profits of the farmer 

 depend more than on any other. It is remarked by Arthur Young, that agricultural 

 writers, previously to the middle of the eighteenth century, paid little or no attention to 

 it. They recite, he says, courses good, bad, and execrable in the same tone, as matters 

 not open to praise or censure, and unconnected with any principles that could throw light 

 on the arrangement of fields. The first writer who assigned due importance to the subject 

 of rotations seems to have been the Rev. Adam Dickson, in his Treatise on Agriculture, 

 published in Edinburgh in 1777 ; and soon afterwards Lord Kaimes, in his Gentleman 

 Farmer, illustrates the importance of the subject : both writers were probably led to it 

 by observing the effects of the Norfolk husbandry, then beginning to be introduced to 

 Berwickshire. But whatever may have been the little attention paid to this subject by 

 former writers, the importance of the subject of rotations, and the rule founded on the 

 principles already laid down, that culmiferous crops ripening their seeds should not be 

 repeated vnthout the intervention of pulse, roots, herbage, or fallow, is now " recognised 

 in the practice and writings of all judicious cultivators, more generally perhaps than any 

 other." {Edit, of Farmer's Mag.) 



4928. The system of rotations is adapted for every soil, though no particular rotation can be given for 

 any one soil which will answer in all cases ; as something depends on climate, and something also on the 

 kind of produce for which there is the greatest market demand. But wherever the system of rotations is 

 followed, and the several processes of labour which belong to it properly executed, land will rarely get into 

 a foul and exhausted state, or at least, if foul and exhausted under a judicious rotation, " matters would 

 be much worse were any other system followed." 



4929. The particular crops which enter into a system of rotation must obviously be such as are suited to 

 the soil and climate, thougn.as the experienced author so often quoted observes, " they will be somewhat 

 varied by local circumstances, such as the proximity of towns and villages, where there is a greater de- 

 mand for turnips, potatos, hay, &c. than in thinly peopled districts. In general, beans and clover, with 

 rye-grass, are interposed between corn crops on clayey soils ; and turnips, potatoes, and clover with rye- 

 grass on dry loams and sands, or what are technically known by the name of turnip .soils. A variety of 



