The Norfolk four-course system is unsuitable for heavy land, where a•large breadth of roots cannot be profitably grown, and where their place, as a cleaning crop, is taken by bare fallow, vetches, or pulse. Bare fellows are, however, less frequent than form, erly, being now confined to the most refractory of clays, or to subjects that are so hope lessly fully of weeds as to require for their extirpation several weeks of summer weather and the repeated use of the steam or horse plows, the scarifier, grubber, and harrows. In such circumstances, winter vetches are often put in during September or October, are eaten off by sheep and horses in June or July, and the land afterward cleaned: this practice is extensively pursued on the heavier lands in the midland and southern coun ties of England. In such localities the following system is approved of: (1) The clover leas arc seeded with (2) wheat; then come (3) beans, pulse, or vetches, manured, horse.or hand hoed; (4) On good land, wheat succeeds; (5) Oats or barley often follow, but to prevent undue exhaustion of plant-food, this system requires considerable outlay in arti ficial manures, cake, and corn; (6) A fallow, or fallow crop, deeply and thoroughly cultivated, and well manured, conies to restore cleanness and fertility; (7) Barley or wheat is drilled, and amongst this, the clover-seeds are sown. On. the heavier carse lands in Scotland the following plan of cropping is generally practiced: (1) Clover; (2) Oats; (3) Beans; (4) Wheat; (5) Bare fallow or fallow crop, usually including a consider able breadth of potatoes; (6) Wheat; (7) Barley, with which the clovers or mixed grasses arc sown. Undar this system it is difficult, with so few cleaning crops, to keep the land clean; roots, besides, arc not produced in quantities sufficient properly to supply either cattle or sheep during the winter. To remedy these defects, roots may be intro duced after the oats, and would be followed either by wheat or barley. This extends the rotation from seven to nine years.
In all well-cultivated districts, whether of heavy or light land, stock-fanning is extending, and a more vigorous effort is being made to raise the fertility of the land. Root-crops are accordingly more largely grown; indeed, it is sometimes found profit able to grow two root-crops consecutively; thus, after turnips, Swedes, cabbage, or man geld, well manured from the town or farmyard, and eaten off by sheep, potatoes of superior quality are produced with one plowing, and a dose of portable manure. Specialties of management occur in almost every locality. In Essex, winter-beans fol low wheat, are got off in August, and are succeeded by common turnips. Near London, and in other southern districts, early potatoes or peas are grown for market, and are immediately followed by turnips.- In many parts of England, where the soil and climate are good, rye or vetches sown in autumn are consumed in early summer, and a root-crop then put in.
Good rotations do not necessarily insure good farming; they are merely means to an end. By carefully removing weeds, by deeply stirring the soil, and by applying appro
priate manures, wheat may be grown on the same soil for an indefinite number of years. At Lois-Weedon, in Northamptonshire, the rev. S. Smith has for 20 years cultivated alternate three-foot 'strips of wheat.and well-forked bare fallow; the land that is wheat this year being fallowed next. Although no manure whatever is applied, and only one half of the experimental plot is each year under crop, the yield continues to stand at four quarters per acre, which is about four bushels per acre iu excess of the average acreable produce of Great Britain. The Lois-Weedon system, owing to the outlay which it entails for manual labor, probably could not he carried out with profit on a large scale. It demonstrates, however, the inherent resources lying dormant, especially in clay soils, and indicates how they may he rendered available by thorough cultivation. It is mainly by such cultivation that steam-power proves so serviceable in our fields. The soil is turned up deeply to the disintegrating solvent influences of wind and weather; the necessary operations are rapidly overtaken ip good season; much work is accomplished in autumn; treading and poaching of the surface is avoided; while a larger breadili of roots is attainable for the healthy and economical support of the sheep and cattle stock, which not only directly enhance the returns of the farm, but also raiso rapidly its manurial condition.
As agricultural education and enterprise extend, fixed rotations will be less regarded. T4 market gardener, who extracts a great deal more from his land than the fernier has hitherto been able to do, does not adhere to any definite system of dropping. If the farm is kept clean and in improving condition, there can be no harm in growing what ever crops it is adapted to produce. Cropping clauses are only requisite during the three or four last years of a tenancy. The restrictions found in some agreements pre venting the growth of clover for seed, flax, and even potatoes, are inadmissible. Equally objectionable are clauses against the sale of particular sorts of produce, such as hay or roots. The farmer, if lie is fit to be intrusted with the use of the land, ought to be pe• mitted to grow or sell off any crop he pleases, provided an equivalent in manure be brought back. On wc]l.cultivated laud, in good condition, it is now the practice of the best farmers tc take oats or barley after wheat; indeed, some of the best malting barley in Essex, on the Scottish-carse lands, and elsewhere, is now grown after wheat. The frequent growth of cereals, and the heaviest of hay and root crops, even when removed froth the farm, be fairly compensated for by large doses of town-dung or of sewage. The plant-food disposed of iu the more ordinary sales of the farm is economically restored by the use of bones or superphosphate, guano, or nitrate of soda, or by keeping plenty of sheep, penning them over the land, and supplying them liberally with cake and corn.