USE OF MANURES. 445 



fences to keep them within bound. The second objection is a 

 much more serious one, because we have not the remedy in 

 our own hands, unless we keep constantly on the watch against 

 trespassers. Our agricultural towns, however, can aid the 

 farmer very much in this matter. There is no more reason 

 why they should not prohibit dogs from running at large than 

 cattle or any other animal liable to do injury, witli such penal- 

 ties attached to the infraction of any law passed for preventing 

 this nuisance as to insure a proper obedience to it. In many 

 parts of Rhode Island, where sheep husbandry has increased 

 very much of late, the farmers have united together to keep off 

 dogs, allowing no person to go over their land if accompanied 

 by one. Many suffer their dogs to roam about, or to be their 

 companions in the field and on the road, from inconsiderateness ; 

 and when once they come to know the injury caused by them 

 they are quite ready to join in preventing it. 



There is another subject which does not appear to have 

 received the attention of this society to the extent which its 

 importance would seem to demand. I refer to a well-considered 

 system in the rotation of crops best adapted to our soils, cli- 

 mate, and markets. Chance or convenience is apt to determine 

 our course of cultivation, in total disregard of all the principles 

 connected with vegetable habits and growth. Every farmer 

 knows that a continuous cultivation of any plant takes from the 

 soil those qualities essential to its healthy growth, and that to 

 reproduce it year after year requires the highest manuring possi- 

 ble, and which, however scientifically applied to meet its wants, 

 fails at last to produce a profitable result. We know, too. that 

 certain crops impoverish the soil more than others ; that all 

 plants ripened for their seed exhaust the land more than those 

 consumed upon it or removed in a green and incomplete state 

 of growth; that some crops require deeper tillage and are 

 capable of closer and more constant cultivation than others, 

 which cannot be worked upon until ready for the harvest. These 

 arc some of the leading facts taught by long experience, which 

 should govern us in establishing certain rotations in crops, with- 

 out which a high state of fertility cannot be maintained. 



The shortest rotation worthy of mention is the four-years' 

 course ; that is to say, the whole farm passes under the plough 



