OUTLINE OF CROP MANAGEMENT 



87 



A modem 11-foot seeder. 



(10) Rotation-farming develops a continuous and consecutive plan of business. It maintains the 

 continuity of farm labor, and reduces the economic and social diflSculties that arise from the employing 

 of many men at one time and few 

 men at another time. 



Rotation practices. 



Just what rotation scheme 

 shall be adopted in any case must 

 depend on many local and special 

 considerations. What some of these 

 considerations are may be briefly 

 discussed. 



(a) The rotation must adapt itself to the farmer's business — to the support of live-stock if he is a 

 dairyman or stock-farmer, to the demands of the grain trade if he is a grain-farmer, to the cotton 

 market if he is in a cotton region. 



(b) It must adapt itself to the soil and the fertility problem. Often the chief purpose of a rotation is 

 to recuperate worn and depleted lands. In such case, the frequent recurrence of leguminous humous 

 crops is preeminently desirable. 



(c) The fertilizer question often modifies 

 the rotation — whether manure can be pur- 

 chased cheaply and in abundance or whether 

 it must be made on the place. 



(d) The kind of soil and the climate may 

 dictate the rotation. 



(e) The labor supply has 

 bearing on the character of 

 course. The farmer must be 

 careful to plan to keep the 

 number of plowings and the 

 amount of cultivating within 

 the limits of his capabilities. 



(/) The size of the farm, 

 and whether land can be 

 rented for pasturage, are 

 also determinants. It is not 

 profitable to grow the cereals and some other crops on small areas ; in fact, rotation-farming is 

 chiefly successful with large-area crops. 



(g) In the future more than in the past, the rotation must be planned with reference to the species 

 of plants that will best serve one another, or produce the best interrelationship results. 



(h) The rotation must consider in what condition one crop will leave the soil for the succeeding 

 crop, and how one crop can be seeded with another crop. One reason why wheat is still so generally 

 grown in the East is because it is a good " seeding crop "; grass and clover are seeded with it, and it 

 therefore often makes a rotation practicable. 

 In some parts of the East, rye takes the place 

 of winter-wheat in the rotation course. Every 

 careful farmer soon comes to know that a cer- 

 tain tilth or condition of soil may be expected 

 to result from certain crops. Thus buckwheat 

 has a marked effect on hard-pan soils, leaving 

 them mellow and ash-like. The explanation of 

 this action of buckwheat is unknown. Potato- 

 growers who have hard land like to grow 

 buckwheat as a preparation for potatoes, 

 although buckwheat is rarely a regular part of 

 a rotation. Winter-wheat commonly follows 

 oats, for the reason that the oats are harvested 



SSWrtsi-v 



124. A present-day side-cut 

 mowing machme. 



IMais 



Fig. 12S. A present-day center-cut mowing machine. 



