134 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
its natural fertility, may be drawn upon for a few years with¬ 
out serious detriment, and because, also, the farmer who just 
opens a farm is apt to be sadly in need of the means to establish 
it upon a proper basis, having everything to do. Wheat and 
other grains, cheap as they are apt to be, most readily and con¬ 
veniently supply those needful means ; but we warn him not 
to continue that practice for a long period, for it is much easier 
to destroy fertility than to restore it. Let him conduct the 
raising of grain with a view to the future introduction 
and cultivation of the grasses and to a regular system 
of rotation of crops. We conceive that the best method of 
farming for Wisconsin, (we might say for all the northern 
states), whether stock raising, dairying or the raising of grain, 
is to predominate; or whether, as appears to us preferable, all 
these are carried on in fair proportions, must have for its basis 
the raising in a large measure, of the cultivated grasses, and 
more particularly, of clover. 
To illustrate our meaning: let us suppose the farm to con¬ 
sist of a quarter section or 160 acres of land. Allowing of 
this, twenty acres for a timber lot, ten acres for an orchard and. 
garden, and ten more for farm buildings, yards, calf and hog 
pastures and lanes, there would remain 120 acres to be special¬ 
ly devoted to crop culture and rotation. These 120 acres we 
would divide into six lots containing twenty acres each; three 
of these lots should be kept constantly in clover or clover and 
timothy; one to be used for pasture in connection with the 
timber lot; the other two, grass-lots to be cut for hay; of 
these the oldest seeded may be used for fall pasture and the 
other mowed for a second crop of hay or grass seed. The lot 
used for summer pasture having now been in grass three years, 
we would break up the next spring for a crop of corn, pota¬ 
toes, and other hoed crops. 
It may, perhaps, be objected that we are writing more upon 
the subject of rotation of crops than about the management of 
a farm. To this we answer that management obviously in¬ 
cludes system and that we cannot conceive of a systematic 
management of a farm, which should not include a regular ro- 
