34 TALKS OX MANURES. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

 SUMMER-FALLOWING. 



This is not the place to discuss the merits, or demerits, of fallow- 

 ing. But an intelligent Ohio farmer writes me : " I see that you 

 recommend fallow plowing, what arc your reasons ? Granting 

 that the immediate result is an increased crop, is not the laud im- 

 poverished ? Will not the thorough cultivation of corn, or pota- 

 toes, answer as well ? " And a distinguished farmer, of this State, 

 in a recent communication expressed the same idea that summer- 

 fallowing would soon impoverish the land. But if this is the case, 

 the fault is not in the practice of summer-fallowing, but in growing 

 too many grain crops, and selling them, instead of consuming them 

 on the farm. Take two fields ; summer-fallow one, and sow it to 

 wheat. Plant the other to corn, and sow wheat after it in the fall. 

 You get, say 35 bushels of wheat per acre from the summer-fallow. 

 From the other field you get, say, 30 bushels of shelled corn per 

 acre, and 10 bushels of wheat afterwards. Now, where a farmer 

 is in the habit of selling all his wheat, and consuming all his corn 

 on the farm, it is evident that the practice of summer-fallowing 

 will impoverish the soil more rapidly than the system of growing 

 corn followed by wheat and for the simple reason that more 

 wheat is sold from the farm. If no more grain is sold in one case 

 than in the other, the summer-fallowing will not impoverish the 

 soil any more than corn growing. 



My idea of fallowing is this: The soil and the atmosphere 

 furnish, on good, well cultivated land, plant-food sufficient, say, for 

 15 bushels of wheat per acre, every year. It will be sometimes 

 more, and sometimes less, according to the season and the character 

 of the soil, but on good, strong limestone land this may be taken 

 as about the average. To grow wheat every year in crops of 15 

 bushels per acre, would impoverish the soil just as much : 

 summer-fallow and get 30 bushels of wheat every other year. It 

 is the same thing in either case. But in summer-fallowing, we 

 clean the land, and the profits from a crop of 30 bushels per acre 

 every other year, are much more than from two crops of 15 bush- 

 els every year. You know that Mr. Lawes has a field of about 

 thirteen acres that he sows with wheat every year. On the plot 

 that receives no manure of any kind, the crop, for twenty years, 

 averaged 16J bushels per acre. It is plowed twice every year, and 



