creased or maintained production, or if the crops take away more 

 organic matter than nature's three-fold con tributions wTTPrepIace^ 

 ~th"en~a downward progress must begin, and will proceed, whether 

 slowly or quickly, to extreme poverty of the land, its profitless 

 cultivation and final abandonment. In this, the more usual can 1 , 

 the cultivator's contributions of aliment (obtained from the soil,) 

 are reduced from the former value, designated as five, first to four, 

 and next successively to three, two, and finally less than one; and 

 nature keeps equal pace in reducing her proportional supplies from 

 fifteen first to twelve, and so on to nine and six, and less than three 

 parts. So the strongest inducement is offered to enrich, rather 

 than exhaust, the soil ; for whatever amount of fertility the culti- 

 vator shall bestow, or whatever abstraction from a previous rate of 

 supply he shall make, either the gain or the loss will be tripled in 

 the account of supplies from the atmosphere furnished or withheld 

 by nature. 



" In another and more practical point of view, the loss incurred 

 by exhausting may be plainly exhibited. According to my views, 

 soils supposed to be properly constituted as to mineral ingredients 

 do not demand, for the maintaining and increasing of their rate of 

 production, more than the resting, or the growth of two years in 

 every five, mainly to be left on the land as manure." 



"These are the proportions of the five-field rotation, now exten- 

 sively used on the most improving parts of Virginia. And one of 

 these two years the field is grazed, so that parts of its growth of 

 grass are consumed, instead of all remaining on the field for ma- 

 nure. To meet the same demands, the more Southern planter 

 might leave his field to be covered by its growth of weeds (or 

 natural grasses), one year, (and also to be grazed), and a broadcast 

 crop of pea- vines to he-ploughed under in another, for every three 

 crops of grain and cotton. But the ready answer to this, (and I 

 have heard it many times), is, " what! lose two crops in every five 

 years ? I cannot afford to lose even one." It may be that the 

 planter is so diligent and careful in collecting materials for pre- 

 pared manure that he can extend a thin and poor application, and. 

 in the drills only, over nearly half his cotton field ; and perhaps he 

 persuades himself that this application will obviate the necessity 

 for rest and manuring crops to the land. 



