308 
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
are apt to become infested with insects, the larvae of which often 
find their way into the stomachs of animals and produce disease. 
ROOT-CROPS, 
which form so important a part in systems of rotation practiced in 
Europe, with us can only be grown profitably to a limited extent. 
Corn and clover take the place of root-crops in our system. 
WHEAT. 
In the three-years system of rotation, practiced by many of our 
farmers, with good results, wheat, oats, and barley followed corn, 
clover-seed being alwa}'S sown with the small-grain. This system 
of rotation is highly beneficial in restoring fertility and cleaning 
the land of foul weeds. By clean cultivation of the corn-crop, 
weeds are rapidly killed; while many of the good effects of a sum¬ 
mer-fallow is obtained. But one crop of small-grain is taken from 
the land, when the land is again put in clover; and with this 
frequent use of the mowing-machine and the corn-cultivator, weeds 
stand but a poor chance. 
WILD-OATS, 
so troublesome to some grain-farmers on our prairies, are easily 
killed out, and had we Canada thistles, I think they would have to 
succumb. In the four-years course of rotation, oats and barley fol¬ 
low corn, and wheat after barley or oats. In speaking of wheat in 
these rotations, spring-wheat is meant, that being the kind of 
wheat most raised on the prairie-lands of our State. 
Where red-clover is made the leading, or as the Hon. George 
Geddes expresses it, the u pivotal crop,” more stock can be kept, 
and larger quantities of manure made than by any other course of 
rotation. Nearly all the manure made on the farm should be ap¬ 
plied to the corn-land. The use of plaster as a fertilizer is rapidly 
nc reasing. On sandy lands, dry prairie, and opening lands great 
benefit is derived from its use. 
Since the days of Benjamin Franklin, when plaster of Paris was 
first used in America, plaster has remained a riddle that neither 
science nor practical skill has been able to solve; why it has such 
marvelous effect on dry land, and no effect on wet land. It is sol¬ 
uble in four hundred times its weight in water, and ought then to 
