114 
Light-Land Farming. 
swallowed up by the crop to which it is applied, but appears 
year after year in the farmyard dung made from the additional 
bulk of straw and roots originally produced. 
The evil in the five-course rotation is, on some soils, the pre- 
valence of fingers and toes in the turnip crop : to obviate this, two 
modes may be adopted ; — either the land must be limed every 
second rotation, or the rotation itself must be changed. The 
former plan is not always successful in curing the evil, although, 
as is generally admitted, it will be greatly mitigated thereby. 
The second mode is more effectual, but, as materially changing 
the rotation of a farm is attended by great inconvenience, it is 
not often adopted. The writer has succeeded in completely 
preventing the disease by occasionally breaking up the grass 
fields after they have lain only one year, and taking a crop of 
potatoes instead of a second year's pasture: thus, 1st, grass 
pasture; 2nd, potatoes; 3rd, either wheat or oats; 4th, turnips; 
5th, barley. Tlie farm-yard manure which would otherwise 
be applied to the turnip crop is laid on for potatoes, and the 
turnip crop can be grown by artificial manure ; say, 2 cwts. of 
guano and 8 bushels of bones, producing a far better and 
sounder crop than those fields where the ordinary management 
of manuring had been observed. On many thin soils, long 
farmed in fives, potatoes have probably never been grown in the 
memory of man ; and this crop being new to the soil, a very 
good produce is obtained of a very superior quality, and, from the 
dryness and soundness of the soil, generally very free from 
disease. By interpolating a potato crop into a five-course in 
this way, both the turnip and grass crops are improved, and as 
these are the restorers of fertility, the general good effect is 
greatly increased. The same plan can be adopted on thin land 
farmed in a six-course, by taking potatoes after the second 
year's pasture.; and, as in this case there is generally a con- 
siderable accumulation of sods or vegetable matter, large crops 
can be raised with a small amount of manure. Of course, it is 
not meant that upon a large farm of 500 acres, or so, the whole 
of the grass would be broken up after having lain one year and 
be cro])ped with potatoes, because this would occasion great 
disturbance in the general economy of the farm ; but 20 or 25 
acres could be so treated every year on such fields as had mani- 
fested a tendency to produce fingers and toes in the turnip crop. 
Wherever there is a market for the sale of potatoes this plan is 
well worthy of being adopted, as the crop itself will generally be 
remunortitive, and sometimes extraordinary ; so, at the same time, 
the additional outlay for artificial manures is exceedingly trifling, 
when compared with the advantages derived both by the tarnips 
and grass crops from thus varying the crops of the rotation. 
