800 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



4939. Rotation for light soils. These are easily managed, though to procure a full return of the profit 

 which they are capable of yielding, requires generally as much attention as is necessary in the manage, 

 ment of those of a stronger description. Upon light soils, a bare summer fallow is seldom called for, as 

 cleanliness may be preserved by growing turnips, and other leguminous articles. Grass also is of emi- 

 nent advantage upon such soils, often yielding a greater profit than what is afibrded by culmiferous 

 crops. 



1. Turnips. 3. Clover and rye-grass. 



2. Spring wheat, or barley. 4. Oats or wheat. 



This is a fashionable rotation ; but it may be doubted whether a continuance of it for any considerable 

 period is advisable, because both turnips and clover are found to fall oft" when repeated so often as once in 

 four years. Common red clover will not grow every four years, unless gypsum be restored to the land. 

 Perhaps the rotation would be greatly improved were it extended t eight years, whilst the ground, by such 

 an extension, would be kept fresh and constantly in good condition. As, for instance, were seeds for pas- 

 tare sown in the second year, the ground kept three years under grass, broke up for oats in the sixth year, 

 drilled with beans and peas in the seventh, and sown with wheat in the eighth ; the rotation would then 

 be complete, because it included every branch of husbandry, and admitted a variety in management gene- 

 rally agreeable to the soil, and always favourable to the interest of cultivators. The rotation may also con- 

 sist of six crops, were the land kept only one year in grass, though few situations admit of so much 

 cropping., unless additional manure is witliin reach. 



4940. Rotation for sandy soils. These, when properly manured, are well adapted to turnips, though it 

 rarely happens that wheat can be cultivated on them with advantage, unless they are dressed with alluvial 

 compost, marl, clay, or some such substances as will give a body or strength to them, which they do not 

 naturally possess. Barley, oats, and rye, the latter especially, are, however, sure crops on sands, and in 

 favourable seasons will return greater profit than can be obtained from wheat 



1. Turnips well manured consumed on the ground. 3. Clover and rye-grass. 



2. Barley sown with clover and rye-grass. 4. Wheat, rye, or oats. 



By keeping the land three years in grass, the rotation would be extended to six years, a measure highly 

 advisable." 



4941. These examples are sufficient to illustrate the subject of improved rotations; 

 but as the best general schemes may be sometimes momentarily deviated from with ad- 

 vantage, the same able author adds, that " cross cropping, in some cases, may perhaps 

 be justifiable in practice ; as, for instance, we have seen wheat taken after oats with great 

 success, when these oats had followed a clover crop on rich soil ; but, after all, as a ge- 

 neral measure, that mode of cropping cannot be recommended. We have heard of 

 another rotation, which comes almost under the like predicament," though, as the test of 

 experience has not yet been applied, a decisive opinion cannot be pronounced upon its 

 merits. This rotation begins with a bare fallow, and is carried on with wheat, grass for 

 one year or more, oats, and wheat, where it ends. Its supporters maintain that beans 

 are an uncertain crop, and cultivated at great expense ; and that in no other way will 

 corn, in equal quantity and of equal value, be cultivated at so little expense as according 

 to the plan mentioned. That the expense of cultivation is much lessened, we acknow- 

 ledge, because no more than seven ploughings are given through the whole rotation ; 

 but whether the crops will be of equal value, and whether the ground will be preserved 

 in equally good condition, are points which remain to be ascertained by experience." 

 {Brown on Rural Affairs.) 



4942. As a general guide to devising rotations on clay soils, it may be observed, that 

 winter or autumn sown crops are to be preferred to such as are put in in spring. Spring 

 ploughing on such soils is a hazardous business, and not to be practised where it can 

 possibly be avoided. Except in the case of drilled beans, there is not thtShslightest 

 necessity for ploughing clays in the spring months ; but as land intended to carry beans 

 ought to be early ploughed, so that the benefit of frost may be obtained, and as the seed 

 furrow is an ebb one, rarely exceeding four inches in deepness, the hazard of spring 

 ploughing for this article is not of much consequence. Ploughing with a view to clean 

 soils of the description under consideration has little effect, unless given in the summer 

 months. This renders summer fallow indispensably necessary ; and without this radical 

 process, none of the heavy and wet soils can be suitably managed, or preserved in a good 

 condition. 



4943. To adopt a judicious rotation of cropping for every soil, requires a degree of 

 judgment in the farmer, which can only be gathered from observation and experience. 

 The old rotations were calculated to wear out the soil, and to render it unproductive. 

 To take wheat, barley, and oats in succession, a practice very common thirty years ago, 

 was sufficient to impoverish the best of land, while it put little into the pockets of the 

 farmer ; but the modern rotations, such as those which we have described, are founded 

 on principles which ensure a full return from the soil, without lessening its value, or im- 

 poverishing its condition. Much depends, however, upon the manner in which the 

 different processes are executed ; for the best arranged rotation may be of no avail, if the 

 processes belonging to it are imperfectly and unseasonably executed. I'See 2221.) 

 The best farmers in the northern counties now avoid over-cropping or treating land in 

 any way so as to exhaust its powers, as the greatest of all evils. 



Sect. II. The working of Fallows. 



4944. The practice of fallowing, as we have seen in our historical view of Greek and 

 Roman agriculture, has existed from the earliest ages ; and the theory of its beneficial 



