Green Crop Should Follow Pasture, 21 



left in grass for five years, the cost per annum will 

 be about 10s. per acre, the same as a farmer now 

 spends per annum if he leaves his land two years in 

 grass. As Lord Leicester has pointed out, it is most 

 essential that, on ploughing up the pasture, a green crop 

 should first of all be taken ; and I may even go so far as 

 to say that to adopt any other course would be to insure 

 a partial, and, perhaps, a very considerable failure when 

 the system is first begun, though, as I have elsewhere 

 pointed out, the second rotation may be begun with oats, 

 should this be more suitable to the circumstances of 

 the farmer. I may here mention that there are two 

 objections to beginning the rotation with oats — the first, 

 and by far the most important, is that weed seeds blown 

 on to the surface of the land are ploughed down and so 

 conserved all winter to germinate in the spring, where 

 along with other weeds that may be present in the 

 land, they must be left undisturbed till the corn is cut, 

 when all the seeds ploughed down add to the expense of 

 cleaning the land for turnips in the year following. But 

 if turnips are taken the first year, nearly all the weed 

 seeds are sprung, and the plants from them, along with 

 other seeds present, are destroyed by the cultivation, and 

 then by the second turnip crop of the rotation the land 

 is so thoroughly clean that to begin a second rotation 

 with oats is less objectionable on the score of weeds. 

 After the land is thoroughly cleaned by the two turnip 

 crops of the rotation, turnips might be taken out of lea and 

 the land laid down the year following with a crop, should 

 this suit the plans of the farmer— in other words, the 

 eight years rotation I recoromend and practise, could be 

 turned into a six years rotation. I may here add that 

 the main principle of my system is that the land should 

 not lie less than four years in grass, for, as shown by 

 Dr. Voelcker's analysis (see Appendix IV.), there is much 

 more rootage in the fourth than in the third — ^in other 

 words, much more vegetable matter to plough down for 

 the obvious benefit of the fertility of the soil. 



