196 



THE ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTS. 



Rotation 

 crops. 



Persistent 

 corn-grow- 

 ing. 



Legumin- 

 ous crops 

 in early 

 rotations. 



Introduc- 

 tion of tur- 

 nip-cul- 

 ture. 



in what the practice itself consists, and how its benefits are 

 to be explained. 



If the rotation of crops as followed in our own country, 

 indeed over large portions of Europe, were to be denned in 

 the fewest possible words, it might be said that it consists in 

 the alternation of root-crops, and of leguminous crops, with 

 cereals. In the United States, however, it is a gramineous 

 crop — maize — which largely takes the place of root-crops in 

 Europe. 



The cereals constituting such a very important element of 

 human food, it was natural that they should be grown almost 

 continuously so long as the land would yield remunerative 

 crops. Hence, the history of agriculture, not only in our 

 own country, but in others where these crops were of high 

 relative value, shows that it very generally came to be the 

 custom to grow them for a number of years in succession, and 

 then to have recourse to bare fallow; or, in some cases, to 

 abandon the land to the growth of rough and weedy herbage, 

 affording scanty food for domestic animals. 



The improvement upon these practices, attainable by alter- 

 nating other crops with the cereals, was very much earlier re- 

 cognised in the case of the leguminous than of the root-crops, 

 the introduction of which is of comparatively recent date. 



It was, in fact, distinctly recognised by the Komans more 

 than two thousand years ago, not only that certain legu- 

 minous crops were valuable as food for animals, but that their 

 growth enriched the soil for succeeding crops — in fact, that 

 they were of value as restorative crops grown in alternation 

 with the cereals. There is, however, very scanty indication 

 that root-crops were an element in their alternate cropping. 



As in the agriculture of the ancients, so in that of more 

 modern times, especially in our own country, various legumi- 

 nous crops were grown in alternation with cereals long before 

 roots were so interpolated. 



It was, indeed, not until about, or after, 1730 that Lord 

 Townshend, who, as Secretary to George I., had been in Hano- 

 ver, and there seen turnips growing as a field crop, on his 

 return introduced them on his own estate in Norfolk, and 

 there founded the celebrated Norfolk four-course rotation of 

 turnips, barley, clover, and wheat. His own land was previ- 

 ously to a great extent a marshy or sandy waste, and its value 

 was increased enormously under the new system. It was, 

 however, not until towards the end of the century that it 

 became generally adopted even throughout his own county. 

 In this extension Mr Coke, of Holkham (afterwards Earl of 

 Leicester), was largely instrumental, and the practice seems 

 to have next extended into Lincolnshire. 



