ROTATION SYSTEM. 279 



wheat better than most other crops ; hence, it is the practice 

 of the best farmers to cut their clover early, and turn over the 

 sod for winter wheat. 2. A grain crop, as oats, may be taken 

 as a fallow crop previous to wheat or rye. 



The following will be found a good system of rotation. 1. 

 The first year, beans, potatoes or Indian corn with manure. 2. 

 The second year, wheat, rye, barley or oats, without manure. 

 3. The third year, roots, such as turnips, carrots or beets, 

 with deep tillage and compost manure. 4. The fourth year, 

 the same as the second year, with clover seed. The land 

 should be smoothed and may remain in clover for a few years, 

 or a clover crop may be taken, and a rotation, commencing 

 with wheat and hoed crops, succeed in the same order. 



In constructing a rotation system, however, the farmer 

 should consult the demand for the articles which he raises, 

 and the character of his soil, as a different system is required 

 for dry and wet or stiff soils. He may select his crops at pleas- 

 ure, provided he do not violate the principles already suggest- 

 ed. The old practice ot growing the same crop for several 

 years upon the same field, if adhered to, will certainly wear out 

 his lands, and he will experience, what thousands have be- 

 fore him, the sure rewards of his folly, barrenness of his lands, 

 and poverty of purse. It is astonishing that farmers have 

 continued the practice so long. It would seem that their ob- 

 servations of what is constantly going forward in nature 

 would have corrected the evil. 



Forests are frequently alternating ; hard wood succeeds 

 pine ; hemlock, pine and cedar succeed hard wood. Rasp- 

 berries and strawberries are endowed by nature with roots by 

 which they change their location. Natural meadows change 

 their grasses gradually, and the fact is so general, that it may 

 be regarded as a law of nature ; change of plants being one 

 of the means which nature employs to keep up fertility, or 

 to restore her exhausted energies. 



A good rotation system forms the basis of good husband- 



