This rotation is adapted to a wheat-growing country, and the money crop, wheat, is grown on one-half of the farm each year, while the other half of the farm is kept in crops that have a more or less renovating effect on the land, and which may he turned into money indirectly by feeding them to live-stock on the farm. In a corn country, corn may he substituted for wheat in the above rotation.
If this system of rotation does not leave the land in grass long enough, the farm may he divided and the following systems of rotation practiced on each division of four fields for eight years, when the systems may be interchanged, the first taking the place of the second, and the second of the first : If the above plan keeps too much land in alfalfa, the farm may he divided and the following systems of rotation practiced on each division of four fields for eight years, when the systems may be inter changed, the first taking the place of the second, and the second of the first : It will be observed that this is really a double eight-year rotation, or, in fact, a sixteen-year rota tion; that is, keeping each of the fields in grass It may be desirable to grow grass as well as alfalfa on the same farm in order to supply pasture for cattle and hay for horses and other stock. If this is so, then the alfalfa rotation plan may be slightly changed and a third system introduced, making a double eight-year or a sixteen-year rota tion, as follows : The rotation will not ordinarily be perfected until the end of the third year, as most of the farms are growing corn and small grain almost exclusively.
This rotation of crops is well adapted only to a grain- farm that carries much live stock. It will be observed that four fields, or one-half of the farm, is always in alfalfa or grass, but occasionally there may be only one field in alfalfa and three in grass, or vice versa ; this is the result of the arrangement by which the seeding and breaking of grass and alfalfa sod is made to come in alter nate years in order to distribute the work evenly from year to year. There will always be two fields of corn and two fields of small grain, although, if it were preferable, corn or some other crop might be grown instead of small grain, on one of these fields each year previous to the year in which the land is seeded down, and not interfere at all with the regular system of rotation.
With this plan of rotation practiced successfuny, each of the eight fields in the farm will have been in alfalfa four years and in grass four years at the end of sixteen years of cropping, and in this period the entire farm will have been manured twice. Meanwhile four fields should have produced, each year, large crops of corn and grain. There is little question that a farm thus managed may be even more fertile at the end of the sixteen years than it was at the beginning.
The above is a six-year rotation and cannot be well adapted to eight fields; it is given to show how crops may be arranged for a smaller number of fields.
This plan of rotation is more readily understood in this way: It is really a three-year rotation on three fields, one of the four fields being kept continually in alfalfa, as shown in the plan. The order of the rotation on each field is corn, followed by corn, followed by small grain. Thus, two fields of corn, one of small grain and one of alfalfa are grown on the farm each year. At the end of four years the field in alfalfa, which has not been included in the three-year rotation, is plowed and planted to corn the succeeding season, while one of the three fields which has been in the regular rotation is seeded to alfalfa and comes out of the regular three-year rotation plan, remaining in alfalfa for four years, when this field is plowed and planted to corn and becomes one of the fields in the three-year rotation series; then another field that has been seeded to alfalfa is thrown out of the regular rotation sys tem, and so on. It will be observed that such a plan may be followed with five fields, six fields, or, in fact, any number of fields. With four fields, by the method described, one-fourth of the farm is kept continually in alfalfa. With five fields, one fifth of the farm would be in alfalfa each,year, and it would take twenty years for the alfalfa rotation to be carried out on all the fields. With three fields, one-third of the farm would be in alfalfa all the time and the rotation system would be completed in twelve years.