CROP ROTATION SYSTEMS IN CANADA, UNITED STATES, AND ELSEWHERE 93 



Details of the system. 



In brief, the details of the process are as follows: 

 An equal farm area is devoted to each of the three 

 staple crops. The best third is planted in cotton, the 

 next best in corn and the poorest third in fall oats. 

 The three areas need not be all in one body; indeed, 

 it is seldom found possible, at the start, so to locate 

 them. After the oats are harvested in June, the 

 stubble is turned under and the area sowed broad- 

 cast with cowpeas, which are later cut and con- 

 verted into either hay or ensilage, leaving only the 

 roots and stubble to be turned under, since there 

 would be no economy in utilizing a feeding material 

 for a fertilizer at forage prices. The cowpea area is 

 planted the second season in cotton, and the former 

 cotton area is put in corn, while oats occupy the 

 previous corn plat. With the corn, cowpeas are also 

 generally planted, either in the drill after the corn 

 is waist-high or upward, or sowed broadcast on "lay- 

 ing by," thus introducing a legume or nitrogen- 

 gatherer into the rotation two years in three. The 

 rotation is invariably (1) corn (with peas) after 

 cotton, (2) oats and peas after corn, and (3) cotton 

 after oats and peas — the grossest feeding crop, 

 cotton, thus following the nitrogen-gatherer, the 

 cowpea. The result, after two or three complete 

 rotations, is an impressive increase in yield all 

 around. Each crop, however, is, when planted, given 

 its own specific fertilization, the formulas for which 

 in the South are well-established standards. 



Results. 



At the end of the first rotation, that is to say in 

 the fourth year, when the area first planted in cot- 

 ton is again occupied by that crop, the increase in 

 yield is always marked and frequently surprising 

 (100 per cent is by no means uncommon) ; and the 

 poorer the land originally the more likely is the 

 percentage to be attained. For example, an initial 

 yield of one-third of a bale, or 500 pounds of seed 

 cotton per acre (the average output), often reaches 

 two-thirds of a bale or 1,000 pounds of seed cotton, 

 after the first rotation; one bale, or 1,500 pounds of 

 seed cotton, after the second rotation ; and one and 

 one-third bales, or 2,000 pounds of seed cotton, 

 after the third rotation. Here uniform increase 

 seems to stop. Given a sufficient supply of moisture 

 there would be, theoretically, no limit to the in- 

 crease in yield, since the mechanical condition of 

 the soil would be steadily improving under its en- 

 larging content of humus, which would of course 

 render possible a corresponding increase in the ap- 

 plication of commercial fertilizers for each staple. 

 As the water-supply, however, is a most erratic 

 factor, it is found in practice that after the third 

 rotation (or tenth year), the yield fluctuates con- 

 siderably, yet seldom falls short of one and one- 

 third bales as a minimum and frequently, in more 

 propitious seasons, attains a maximum of one and 

 three-fourths to two bales per acre, in which there 

 is a most satisfactory profit. 



The increase in the yield of the other two staple 

 crops is neither so uniform nor so large, relatively, 

 as the increase for cotton, yet it is nevertheless 

 very obvious. 



When the available supply of lot manure, usually 

 limited in the South, is distributed broadcast over 

 the poorer spots, or "galls," in order to bring their 

 fertility up to the average of the surrounding area, 

 a terraced cotton-farm, subjected to the " triennial 

 rotation " for ten or twelve years, presents a high 

 type of progress, and becomes, with little cost or 

 inconvenience, an impressive and profitable object 

 lesson, and one that is fortunately placed each year 

 more and more in evidence. The general adoption 

 of the system throughout the entire cotton-belt is 

 unquestionably assured. 



EXAMPLES OF CROP ROTATION SYSTEMS 

 IN CANADA, UNITED STATES, AND 

 ELSEWHERE 



By ,S^. Fraser 



The list following includes the most common 

 rotations employed in America, in Great Britain 

 and parts of the continent, and some in other 

 lands. The effort is not to make a complete list of 

 all crop rotations in use : this would be useless, if 

 indeed not impossible. The more common ones that 

 have come under the writer's notice, and that will 

 serve to show the importance generally attached to 

 crop rotation in the farm management scheme, are 

 given. The same rotation may be in use in many 

 states, but it is given in one place, only where some 

 special significance attaches. The rotations given 

 under any state or province, for this reason, may 

 not be the ones in general use ; the latter will be 

 found elsewhere on the list. In most cases, however, 

 the rotation or rotations are the ones most gener- 

 ally accepted. A few states have been omitted, as it 

 has been impossible for the writer to secure any 

 authentic record of rotations in use. These rota- 

 tions are made as a matter of record, not for 

 recommendation ; nor is it to be understood that 

 the persons cited as authorities necessarily recom- 

 mend them, nor have they furnished them all. These 

 records cannot fail to be suggestive to the reader. 



I. Canada 



Ontario. (G. E. Day.) Ontario Agricultural College 

 Report, 1905. 



4-course : 1, Rutabagas, mangels, potatoes, corn, 

 barley, oats or peas ; 2, fall-sown wheat, or spring- 

 sown oats or barley, and seeded to timothy and 

 clover ; 3, meadow ; 4, meadow or pasture. 



A modification of the above in use at Ontario 

 Agricultural College is : 



8-course : 1, Roots, corn or potatoes ; 2, fall- 

 sown wheat, or spring-sown oats or barley, with 

 four pounds of timothy and eight pounds of red 

 clover per acre, and sometimes a little alsike clover; 

 3, meadow ; 4, dwarf essex rape, land plowed and 

 cultivated until June, rape sown and grazed ; 5, 

 barley, oats or peas (spring-sown); 6, fall-sown 

 wheat, or spring-sown oats or barley, with four 

 pounds of timothy, eight pounds of red clover and 

 five to eight pounds of a mixture of orchard-grass, 

 meadow fescue and tall oat-grass. The addition of 

 the three latter grasses has proved of considerable 



