13 



some succession, some variation in the annual pro- 

 ductions of the same land, is essential. No tenant 

 could obtain a lease, or if he should, could pay his 

 rent and maintain his family, who should wholly dis- 

 regard this. White crops are not to follow one a- 

 nother. White crops are wheat, barley, rye, oats, 

 &c. Our maize, or Indian corn, must be considered 

 a white crop ; although from the quantity of stalk and 

 leaf which it produces, and which are such excellent 

 food for cattle, it is less exhausting than some other 

 white crops; or to speak more properly, it makes great- 

 er returns to the land. Green crops are turnips, po- 

 tatoes, beets, vetches or tares, (which are usually eaten 

 while growing, by cattle and sheep or cut for green 

 food) and clover. Buck or beech wheat, and winter 

 oats, thought to be a very useful product, are regarded 

 also as green crops, when eaten on the land ; and so 

 indeed may any crop be considered, which is used 

 in this way. But the turnip is the great green crop 

 of England. Its cultivation has wrought such changes, 

 in fifty years, that it may be said to have revolution- 

 ized English Agriculture. 



Before that time, when lands became exhausted 

 by the repetition of grain crops, they were left, as it 

 was termed, fallow ; that is, were not cultivated at all, 

 but abandoned to recruit themselves as they might. 

 This occurred as often as every fourth year, so that 

 one quarter of the arable land was always out of cul- 

 tivation and yielded nothing. Turnips are now sub- 

 stituted in the place of these naked fallows ; and now 

 land in turnips is considered as fallow. What is the 

 philosophy of this? The raising of crops, even of 



