state Convention—rotation of crops. 
221 
time we must find the best method which our circumstances will 
permit. 
One of the first and most important steps to be taken in any 
attempt to elevate our agriculture, is to secure some system which 
will present to each crop in its order, the conditions most favora¬ 
ble to secure its growth. The course most generally pursued, 
lacks any such system. Wheat has followed wheat, or alternated 
with oats or corn, according to the whim of the farmer, and there 
are pieces of land in the older portions of our state, which for 
twenty or thirty years have undergone this process without hav¬ 
ing once been seeded, or even manured, and such pieces are often 
pointed at as proving the inexhaustible fertility of our soil. 
A goodly system will determine by little less than absolute 
necessity, the order in which crops shall be taken. It may require 
years of intelligent action and observation to gain such a system, 
and even if we knew what one would be the best, it would re¬ 
quire years to get it into successful operation. The farmer must 
look ahead. It would be essential that it should occupy all the 
land, and that it should produce equal annual results. It must 
be adapted to the ends aimed at by the farmer, whether dairying, 
stock raising or general farming; being engaged in general farm¬ 
ing, my remarks will apply more particularly to it, but I am per¬ 
suaded that the best stock farm in the world is the one on which 
the most grain can be raised. 
The mechanical condition of the soil has much to do with the 
success of the crop. Its wealth must not be locked up in clods, 
nor must the land become so compact as to render it difficult for 
the roots to penetrate it. It is found also, that time itself, with the 
freezing and thawing of winter, the absorption and retention by 
the soil of the elements brought down by the rains, and the chem¬ 
ical decompositions which take place in it, will gradually restore 
its fitness for another crop of the same kind. This fact would 
point towards a long rotation in which as many kinds of crops as 
might be profitably cultivated should be introduced, separating as 
widely as possible the period of return of any particular crop. 
Nature itself gives us periods of rotation on a grand scale, for 
it is well ascertained that our forests gradually change their char- 
