276 SOILS 



good soils closely linked with good rotations and poor 

 soils with poor rotations or a single crop. 



Getting rid of insects and diseases. Still another 

 reason for crop rotation is to keep the land rid of insects 

 and diseases. Grow a crop year after year on the same 

 land and you allow insects and diseases to accumulate and 

 spread. Rotate crops, on the other hand, and insect or 

 disease gains little headway, or disappears altogether. 



The right treatment of disease and of insect lies in a 

 close crop rotation. Follow it and neither fungus nor in- 

 sect can destroy your crop; follow it and your reward 

 will be found in a plenteous harvest. 



Rotations may vary with different fields. You may be 

 able to plan a rotation that will serve for all of your 

 fields ; many farmers are able to do so. Still, such prac- 

 tice is not essential, and it may be wiser to adopt many 

 rotations one for each type of land. If you have hill land 

 as a part of your farm, get a rotation that suits such 

 land ; get another rotation that suits your bottom land. 

 Make your rotations bend to the needs of your land and 

 to your returns rather than allow either to bend to the 

 rotation that may be fast bound, provincial and stupid 

 when applied to your entire holdings. I know a field that 

 has been given to a short rotation in which corn is grown 

 every other year, and this field is more productive than 

 it was fifty years ago. Clover and manure have been the 

 treatment needed for the work. Yet it has been shown 

 by actual field practice on the same farm that a different 

 rotation, although clover and manure are both used, is 

 necessary for other fields. 



And so it goes. You may like a certain field for pasture 

 because of water, shade or other advantage ; and if so, get 

 a rotation that admits a long pasture period and short 

 periods for corn or wheat or cotton or clover or other 



