212 FIELD, FOREST AND FARM 



ripen, and thus at last the ground is cleaned and 

 made ready for a choice crop. This will explain to 

 you the great advantage of letting the potato or some 

 other crop that can be weeded take precedence of 

 the cereals. 



"The second year comes wheat. Cleaned by the 

 tillage that has gone before, the ground is no longer 

 covered with grass and weeds. Nor does it need 

 fresh manure, for if the potatoes have consumed 

 certain elements in the soil, these are not exactly 

 the same that wheat requires ; and, furthermore, the 

 dead plants, turned under and reduced to vegetable 

 mold, compensate by what they have derived from 

 the atmosphere for what the tubers may have taken 

 from the soil. Wheat is therefore just the crop to 

 raise now. 



"But it would be much against one's interest to 

 exact from the soil another crop of wheat the third 

 year. Exhausted by the grain it has just produced, 

 the soil would yield but a scanty harvest unless it 

 were freshly manured, a process that would make 

 of the whole operation, not a piece of farming, but 

 an example of gardening, and would also entail too 

 great expense. For that reason the third year is 

 devoted to the raising of an enriching crop, such as 

 clover. After furnishing a supply of fodder, what 

 is left of the clover is turned under, and all its rem- 

 nants of roots, stems, and leaves are reduced to 

 mold, which renders the soil fit for another wheat 

 harvest the fourth year. A third enriching crop 

 to be turned under after the final mowing, is like- 



