76 THE BOOK OF THE LANDED ESTATE. 



Iii reference to the four-course rotation, Mr Wilson expresses his 

 views as follows in his work on 'British Farming:' 



No better rotation has been devised for friable soils of fair quality than the well- 

 known four-field or Norfolk system. By this course half the arable lands are in 

 grain crops and half in cattle crops annually. It is indeed true that, in the way in 

 which this course has been annually worked, both turnips and clover have recurred 

 so frequently (every fourth year) oh the same fields, that they have become subject 

 to disease, and their produce excessively precarious. But the excellence of this 

 course is, that its main features can be retained and yet endless variation be intro- 

 duced in its details. For example, instead of a rigid one-fourth of the land being 

 each year under turnips, barley, clover, and wheat or oats respectively, half only of 

 the barley division is frequently, in practice, now sown with clover-seeds, and the 

 other half cropped in the following year with beans, peas, potatoes, or vetches. On 

 the same set of fields coming round again to the same point, the treatment is reversed 

 by the beans and clover being made to change places. An interval of eight years is 

 thus substituted for one of four, so far as these two crops are concerned. Italian 

 ryegrass, unmixed with any other plant, is now frequently taken instead of clover on 

 part of the division usually allotted to it, and proves a grateful change both to the 

 land and the animals which consume it. In like manner, instead of sowing turnips 

 invariably every fourth year on each field, a portion of the annual division allotted 

 to this crop can advantageously be cropped with mangold-wurzel, carrots, or cabbages, 

 care being taken to change the site occupied by each when the same fields come again 

 in turn. The same end is even so far gained by alternating Swedish with yellow or 

 globe turnips. It is also found expedient, either systematically or occasionally, to 

 sow a field with clover and pasture grasses immediately after turnips, without a grain 

 crop, and to allow it to remain in pasture for four years. A corresponding extent of 

 the other land is meanwhile kept in tillage, and two grain crops in succession are 

 taken on a requisite portion, to equalise the main divisions both as respects amount 

 of labour and the different staple products. A closer cover of grasses and a better 

 pasture are obtained in this way than by first taking the customary grain crop after 

 turnips ; the land is rested and invigorated for future tillage, the outlay on clover and 

 grass seeds somewhat diminished, and the land better managed for the interest of all 

 concerned, than by a rigid adherence to the customary rotation. 



The rotation of a farm must also in a great degree be decided by the 

 kind of husbandry which is adopted. For instance, it may be desirable 

 to grow a large portion of green crops on a farm in the neighbourhood of 

 a large town, and consequently a course will have to be adopted which 

 will admit of this being done ; and in the case of a farm of mixed 

 husbandry it will be necessary to have a regular quantity of straw and 

 grain to meet the wants of the live stock on the farm ; a certain number 

 of stock on a farm every year necessitates the having a given quantity 

 of food of different kinds, and therefore all this must be taken into con- 

 sideration. Where there is a large proportion of permanent pasture on 

 a farm, it is not necessary to have the clover-seeds in rotation to lie 

 long. Where there is a considerable extent of old permanent grass, the 

 four-course shift is one well adapted for this, other conditions being 

 favourable. 



