AN EXHAUSTING CROP. 369 



the ground between two crops, say between winter 

 vetches and wheat, or between early peas and oats, which 

 otherwise would be left in open fallow. The short time it 

 requires to occupy the ground in the field, renders it more 

 suitable for this mode of cropping than for taking a place 

 in the rotation as a regular annual crop, as in that case 

 the land would lie idle during a great part of the year. 

 It can, however, be advantageously grown either before, 

 after, or between any of the straw crops, or may be sub- 

 stituted for either of the green crops (turnips or rape) be- 

 longing to the same order, or indeed be used for fallowing 

 or cleaning purposes in any rotation, provided it be not 

 brought too closely in succession to the plants already 

 named. 



A very prevalent opinion exists among a certain class of 

 farmers, that cabbages are a very exhausting crop ; and 

 this idea has, no doubt, caused a disinclination on the 

 part of many to introduce their cultivation on their farms. 

 How this idea originated it would be very difficult to 

 say; probably it is based on nothing more than a common 

 opinion, arising from the fact that to obtain a good crop 

 of cabbages it is required that the soil shall be in high 

 condition, and that the larger the crop the more ex- 

 hausted the soil will be of its fertilizing constituents. 

 Neither is it by any means clear that an " exhausting crop/' 

 as it is termed, is detrimental to the interests of the farmer ; 

 indeed, under ordinary conditions and skilful, manage- 

 ment, it should be a benefit rather than a loss to him. If 

 we reduce the business of farming "agriculture" to 

 its simplest formula, we should define it as the conversion 

 of inorganic matter into organized structures through 

 the agency of vegetable life the plants we cultivate. 

 Therefore the plant that is possessed of this power to the 

 greatest extent, that is to say, that can by its own natural 

 powers abstract from the soil and convert into its own 



