VM.VFtANKEN.N.V. 
THIRD 
VOL. I. 
€n Smprflttf tjj? Inil ml tji t Mini. 
ALBANY, AUGUST, 1858. 
SERIES. 
No. VIII. 
Rotation and Good Management. 
T is surprising how much more some men will 
V# accomplish by dint of good management and 
vl shrewd thinking, than others will by hard and 
A. laborious toil. A good story is told of a ‘ ‘back 
woods’ 7 farmer, in whose fields the stumps and 
his crops held each a sort of doubtful jurisdiction, 
and who was very much annoyed by the difficul¬ 
ties in contending with these stubborn representa¬ 
tives of the original forest-oaks. His boys com¬ 
plained much of the annoyances they met with in 
plowing and harrowing—-the old-fashioned “drag” 
especially gave them great trouble, by its constant 
overturning while plunging among the stumps; 
once in each ten yards of traveling, on an average, 
they were obliged to stop and place it “ right side 
up.” “ Boys!” said the father one day, when his 
patience had become exhausted, “ take that har¬ 
row over to Hammer well, the blackswith, and tell 
him to make the teeth all twice their present 
length and shape at both ends, and we shall see 
what we can do!” It was accordingly done, and 
the harrow came back with its teeth as surely 
pointing both directions as those of a revolving 
horse-rake. “Now, boys, we will try the new 
harrow,” and it was accordingly set in motion. 
“ Why, father,” soon exclaimed one of the sons, 
“ it has upset again, just as bad as before!” “Never 
mind, go right on without stopping, it will work 
either side up.” The difficulty was conquered; 
and the harrowing was speedily accomplished, 
and without the innumerable delays of { righting 
the ship.” 
We have seen some very industrious and worthy 
farmers whose labors we could not help compar¬ 
ing with this continued toil with the harrow; and 
others again, whose skilful management was fully 
equal to the double-acting, double-toothed pulver¬ 
izer. And in nothing was this difference more 
visibly exemplified than in the arrangement and 
ROTATION OF CROPS. 
There are other very important requisites fci 
good farming, but they are all accomplished with 
an increase of expenditure and labor. Manuring, 
for example, is a most powerful means for im¬ 
provement ; but both manures and their applica¬ 
tion are expensive in proportion to the amount 
applied. Underdraining has wrought wonderful 
result^, but the cost is always a large item, and 
the same may be said in some degree of deep 
plowing and subsoiling. But in the arrangement 
of a rotation, no additional expenditure dr labor 
is necessary; it costs no more to cultivate crops 
which are made to succeed each other judiciously, 
than to cultivate those arranged in the worst man¬ 
ner possible. The former may bring triple the 
successful results of the latter—not by the expen¬ 
diture of five hundred extra days in drawing ma¬ 
nure, or five hundred dollars worth of ditching; 
but simply by making a proper use of one’s brains. 
It most fortunately happens that no extraordi¬ 
nary originality, shrwedness, or profound wisdom, 
is needed to render available all the advantages of 
a well devised rotation. The full experience of 
others is furnished directly to our hands, in the 
excellent practical publications which have ap¬ 
peared on this subject ; and all we have to do is 
to make use of the materials right before us. It 
seems surprising, under these circumstances, that 
so small a number seize the golden prize thus 
completely placed within their reach—that there 
are so few, even of those reckoned good farmers, 
who pursue anything like a systematic succession, 
to say nothing of such a rotation that shall accom- 
its peculiarly beneficial results, namely, preserva¬ 
tion of the riches of the soil, destruction of weeds, 
destruction of insects, and the most advantageous 
consumption by each successive crop of all the 
means for its growth within reach. As a conse¬ 
quence of this neglect, we see land overcropped 
with wheat, the soil worn out for this particular 
grain, and those troublesome weeds, chess and 
red-root, taking its place. We see pastures, left 
unplowed for a long series of years, become filled 
with “buttercups” and oxeye daisy. A dispro- 
