Sandy soils, when properly manured, are well adapted to turnips, though it rarely happens that wheat can be cultivated on them with advantage, unless they are dressed with alluvial compost, marl, clay, or some such substances as will give a body or strength to them which they do not naturally possess. Barley, oats, and rye, the latter especially, are, however, sure crops on sands; and in favourable seasons, will return greater profit than can be obtained from wheat.
1. Turnips, consumed on the ground.
2. Bailey.
3. Grass.
4. Rye or Oats.
By keeping the land three years in grass, the rota tion would be extended to six years, a measure highly advisable.
From what is stated in this Section, every person capable of judging will at once perceive the facility of arranging husbandry upon correct principles, and of cropping the ground in such a way as to make it produce abundant returns to the occupier, whilst at the same time it is preserved in good condition, and never impoverished or exhausted. All these things are perfectly practicable under the alternate system, though it is doubtful whether they can be gained un der any other. Cross cropping, in some cases, may perhaps be justifiable in practice ; as for instance, we have seen wheat taken after oats, with great success, when these oats had followed a clover crop on rich soil; but after all, as a general measure, that mode of crop ping cannot be recommended. We have heard of ano ther rotation, which comes almost under the like pre dicament, though, as the test of experience has not yet been applied, a decisive opinion cannot be' pronounced upon its merits. This rotation begins with a bare fallow, and is carried on with wheat, grass for one or more years, oats, and wheat, where it ends. Its sup porters maintain, that beans are an uncertain crop, and cultivated at great expense; and that in no other way will corn in equal quantity, and of equal value, be cul tivated at so little expense, as according to the plan mentioned. That the expense of cultivation is much lessened, we acknowledge, because no more than se ven ploughings are given through the whole rotation; but whether the crops will be of equal value, and whe >her the ground will be preserved in equally good con dition, are points which remain to be ascertained by ex perience.
It may be added, before we finish this Section, that winter-sown crops, or crops sown on the winter lurrow, are most eligible on all clay soils. Spring ploughing on such soils is a hazardous business, and net to be prac tised where it can possibly be avoided. Except in the case of drilled beans, there is not the slightest necessity for ploughing clays in the spring months ; but as land in tended to carry beans ought to be early ploughed, so that the benefit of host may be obtained ; and as the seed furrow is an ebb one, rarely exceeding four inches in deepness, the nazard of spring ploughing for this ar ticle is not of much consequence. Ploughing, with a
view to clean soils of the description under considera tion, has little effect, unless given in the summer months. Tins renders summer fallow indispensably necessary; and without this radical process, none of the heavy and wet soils can be suitably managed, or preserved in a good cohoition.
To adopt a judicious rotation of cropping for every soil, a degree of judgment in the farmer, which can only be gathered from observation and experience. In fact, it is hardly to be learned in any other school, though. when attained by one. ne thinks it attainable by all, with little difficulty. The old rotations were calcu lated to wear out the soil, and to render it unproductive. To take wheat, barley, and oats in succession, a practice very common thirty years ago, was sufficient to im poverish the best of land, while it put little into the poekets of the farmer; but the modern rotations, such as those which we have described, are founded on prin ciples which ensure a full return from the soil, with out lessening its value, or impoverishing its condi tion. :Much depends, however, upon the manner in which the different processes are executed ; for the best arranged rotation may be of no avail, if the pro cesses belonging to it arc imperfectly and unreasonably executed.
On the Cultivation of Culiniferous Crafts.
The varieties of corn ranked as culmiferous, or rob bing ones, are Wheat, Barley, Oats, and Rye. These varieties we are inclined to consider as bearing equally hard upon the soil ; and we think it does not matter much which of them are taken, because all are robbers of the ground, and tend to exhaust it of its productive powers. No doubt some soils are more favourable for one sort of corn than for another ; as, for instance, clays and loans are better adapted for wheat than sands and gravels ; while, -vice versa, the latter are better calcula ted for barley than the heavy soils. It is by fixing upon the most proper of each for the soil cultivated, that the judgment of the farmer is correctly ascertained. In other respects, such as the exhaustion of the ground, we view it as a matter of no importance which of them is preferred.