ere a Ateneo mist as 
ROTATION 
most valuable and improved of these interposed 
clover between the spring corn and the winter 
corn, and raised turnips, after a plentiful manur- 
ing, in the early months of the fallow year, and 
in consequence produced the four-course system 
or Norfolk husbandry; and this is the most re- 
markable of all rotations in its effects on the his- 
tory of English agriculture, and continues to the 
present day to command as high an attention as 
in the first ten or twenty years after it became 
known, and may be regarded as, in some sense, 
the type of the great majority of good modern Eng- 
lish rotations, and especially as the model of the 
constant alternation of a white crop and a green 
one which pervades all a modern English farmer’s 
notions of the proper treatment of corn-land. 
Another early and valuable improvement on the 
old three-field system consisted in laying down 
the land to grass in the year of the fallow, and 
allowing it to lie several years in lea; and this, 
together with various interpolations between the 
spring-corn and the winter-corn, amounting in 
some cases to an alternation of pasture with 
something like an English rotation, may be 
viewed as the basis of the best modern rotational 
usages of Scotland and of the most enlightened 
districts of Germany. 
Three rotations common at the present day in 
Germany are mere extensions of the three-field sys- 
tem, and essentially retain its errors; and one of 
these extends through six years, and consists of 
1. fallow, 2. winter corn, 3. spring corn, 4. pease 
and clover, 5. winter corn, and 6. spring corn,— 
| another extends through nine years, and consists 
of 1. fallow, 2. winter corn, 3. spring corn, 4. 
clover, 5. winter corn, 6. spring corn, 7. pease, 8. 
winter corn, and 9. spring corn,—and another 
extends through twelve years, and consists of 1. 
fallow, 2. winter corn, 3. spring corn, 4. clover, 
5. winter corn, 6. spring corn, 7. fallow, 8. winter 
corn, 9. spring corn, 10. pease, 11. winter corn, 
and 12. spring corn. One of the German systems 
of alternate pasture and tillage, is practised on 
the moderately good soils of Holstein, and con- 
sists of 1. three or more years of pasture, 2. oats 
on the newly broken-up grass, 3. cleaning fallow, 
4, wheat, 5. beans or barley or oats, and 6. wheat, 
—manure being given always with either the 
last or the next last crop, and sometimes also 
with the first wheat; another, much practised 
in Mecklenburg, consists of 1. two years of lea, 
2. well-manured potatoes or beans, 3. oats or 
wheat, 4. oats or barley, 5. manured pease or 
tares, and 6. wheat with white clover and grass 
seeds; another, found to be very suitable on 
well-managed moderately good soils, consists of 
1. two years of pasture, 2. oats, 3. well-manured 
beans, 4. wheat, 5. manured tares, 6. barley, and 
7. mown clover and grass; and another, adapted 
to very rich soils in the same way as the pre- 
ceding to moderately good ones, consists of 1. 
two or three years of pasture, 2. well-manured 
rape, 3. wheat, 4. manured and hoed beans or 
aR an NN ne cue Amer 
OF CROPS. - 93 
potatoes, 5. barley, 6. clover, 7. wheat, and 8. oats 
with clover and grass seeds. 
The Norfolk rotation, or four-course system of 
turnips, barley, clover, and wheat, though still 
the most characteristic of all the English rota- 
tions, has for many years been proving itself too 
limited in power, and is now regarded by all 
scientific farmers and by multitudes of mere 
practical ones as quite incompetent to bring 
fairly or tolerably out the resources of even the 
most favourable districts. ‘Though this sys- 
tem,” remarked Mr. Pusey in 1840, “has con- 
ferred such great though silent benefits on the 
country, it may be doubted whether it have not 
accomplished all that it is capable of, and must 
not pass into another. Already it has begun to 
fail in one of its green crops, probably in the 
other. The red clover, it is admitted, can be no 
longer repeated once in four years, and the sub- 
stitution of white clover, or of rye-grass, in the 
alternate fourth year, or the prolongation of the 
course to five years, by sowing rye-grass with 
the clover and thus leaving the ground in grass 
for two years successively, are but imperfect re- 
medies. The evil, however, is likely to increase ; 
for in Flanders, whence the red clover was origin- 
ally brought over, and where the land has been 
long tired with its repetition, it has been de- 
stroyed in whole districts by a grey parasitical 
plant called orobanche, and the only cure has 
been the entire suspension of its cultivation in 
those districts for many years. It is well known 
also, that in Norfolk, where the turnip has been 
longest cultivated, that root has become subject 
to a disease which distorts it with unhealthy 
excrescences ; and it may be worth inquiry 
whether, apart from dry seasons and the depre- 
dations of insects, the late general failure of the 
turnip be not in some degree owing to its too 
frequent repetition. Such being the ill results 
of a too scanty rotation, which consists in the 
endless repetition of four crops, the remedy must 
of course be sought in a greater diversity.” See 
the articles Clover, Turnip, and Broom-Rapz. 
The Norfolk system, too, besides being unsuited 
to soils which are too heavy for turnips or too 
poor for wheat, is ill adapted to thin clays or 
merely moderate loams in all comparatively cold 
and late districts, which are wholly or chiefly 
dependent for manure on their own resources; 
and is even regarded by some eminent agricul- 
turists as uneconomical on the very best soils of 
such districts, except in a few choice places 
and under the most favourable circumstances. 
‘“‘ Whatever the climate of England may be able 
to do in support of this system,” remarks the 
Editor of the Q. Journal of Agriculture, it is 
one which that of Scotland cannot support on 
any farm, however good, situated at a distance 
from a large town,—the source of unlimited sup- 
plies of extraneous manures. Where manure to 
the extent of from 16 to 32 tons per imperial 
acre may be applied (and that is the rate of 
iy 
