ROTATION OF CROPS. In all countries when agriculture has advanced to a condition where the same land is occupied from year to year, a rotation of crops comes to be looked on as indispensable, and for the simple reason that all such cultivated and carried from the land, sooner or later exhaust the soil of the elements of fertility required to perfect the specics. Hence those crops which are carried off, root, branch and seed, exhaust the soil quicker than those,. a portion of which are left on the field or are. returned to it. Consequently the poorer the soil the more care must be taken to diversify the crops, and from the well known fact that dif ferent plants exhaust different constituents of the soil. Among the ancients rotation was less attended to than manuring, and rest and fallow. In more modern times the value of rotation became more generally known, and in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe, most elaborate systems of rotation in connection with the feeding of eattle, and special manures have been adopted In the United States, and especi ally in the West, from the generally fertile char acter of the soil, careful rotation has been less attended to, yet even on the richest soils of the West, it is quickly found that special crops, as wheat, may not be cultivated year after year, on the. same soil, without quick deterioration. In the East and South the system of rotation is in, special cases quite elaborate, yet as a rule. our farmers generally depend more on the simple rotation from grain to grass, in connection with, manure than any other. In the West, where the fattening of stock is one of the most important industries of the farmers, this simple system has been found fully adequate, and from the fact that nothing is carried away from the farm except the stock fed, and farms being stocked with all the animals they will feed, grass becomes fully half the area of farms, conse quently the rotation becomes simplified to a three fold rotation, Indian corn, meadow and pasture, the amount of grain carried away from the farm being small in comparison to that fed. Ill England and on the continent of Europe, turnips, cabbages, beets, carrots, potatoes, vetches, and in fact all the roots and many of the vegetables, here cultivated only in market gardens, enters into the rotation. As showing something of this, we append a system of rota tion for seven years, as prepared at the request of the French government, soon after the Revo lution, and also for the purpose of showing the elaborate syste in vogue nearly a century ago, and as ha relation to the clean culture neees sar grow them. Other points as to their • eliorating nature, and as showing their diversi tied character in view of preventing undue loss in any of the elements of the soil, will be found as interesting as they are important. As showing that grass is the basis of fertility in all countries in the rotation, we give the experience of various sections of the United States, East, West and South; premising with the fact that in Flanders, celebrated for its great yield of crops, and where every thing-, liquid and solid, in the shape of manure is returned to the are made to succeed each other upon our fields. The green manuring and alternating husbandry, so successful in Flanders, has been adopted to a considerable extent in nearly all the other coun tries of Europe, and is constantly growing in favor there. Turnips in those countries have been used quite generally as a soil-renovating crop with great advantage, their large, spreading leaves drawing more nourishment from the atmosphere than their roots do from the soil. Sheep are turned into the fields and eat off the tops or leaves of the turnips, and as many of the roots as they wish, leaving their manure upon the ground evenly distributed, and the field in good condition for a succeeding crop of grain. One of the difficulties in the way of a perfect rotation is, that owing to peculiar seasons, it is impossible to closely follow any established rule, yet, the intelligenee of the eultivator will enable him to provide for such contingenees and follow the system which he may have found beneficial, without serious breaks. For instance, we have known extensive meadows to be destroyed by the larva of the Hay beetle, Lachnosterna quer soil, the soiling of green crops and the turn ing under of others, enabling them in fact to get a rotation even in one season of certain crops, so that it is not uncommon for plowing, sowing and reaping to be carried forward at one and the same period of time, there, as elsewhere, grass or its equivalent, grreen crops being the basis of fer tility. It is said that by the same or similar alter nations of crops that many farms in Norfolk county and other sandy regions of England, once very poor and unproductive, have been converted into the most fruitful, wealthy, and populous districts of that kingdom. This same system bits wrought similar changes of agricul tural improvements in Scotland and Germany, and it will, if properly and perseveringly pur sued, produce equally beneficial results in our own country. There is nothing in farming that requires a nicer judgment, or on which the farmer's profits more depend, than upon the order in which the various farm crops cultivated eina, usually known as the white grub. This destruction is sometimes so complete, that the turf eaten from one to two inches below the surface, rnay be rolled up like a carpet; and, since the grub requires three years to attain its growth fl.om the egg, it may easily be seen how this and other causes may seriously interfere with rotation. Nevertheless, this need not pre vent an intelligent farmer from keeping a rota tion comparatively intact, even under the most adverse conditions, either from insect enemies, drought, or flooding. And more especially when, as may be the case in the West, the rotation is confined to two years of meadow, one year of pasture, one year corn, and one year wheat, and mixed crops, to be varied, according to the stock kept, if for dairying, requiring more pasture, and if for stock feeding, more corn. Let us take a farm of 160 acres. A good Western farmer has recommended the following: Allowing twenty acres of this amount for timber-land, and ten more for farm-buildings, yards, calf and hog pastures, and lanes, there would remain 120 acres to be specially devoted to crop culture and rotation. These 120 acres divide into six lots, containing twenty acres each; three to be kept constantly in clover, or clover and timothy; one in pasture in connection with the timberlot; the other two grass-lots to be cut for hay. Of these the oldest seeded may be used for fall pasture, and the other mowed for a second crop of hay or grass-seed. The lot used for summer pasture having been in grass for three years, should be broken up in the spring following for a crop of corn, potatoes, and other hoed crops; this for restoring exhausted, overworked soils. Of course,
virgin soils require no close rotation of crops; but the raising of grain should invariably be conducted with a view to the future introduction and cultivation of the grasses and to a regular system of rotation of crops. The rotation of Mr. W. S. Thorp, of Vermont, may be taken as indicative of a good rotation for the New England States. He believes that an eight-year rotation might be used with profit generally. This, allowing the farm twenty acres of wood land, would leave eight ten-acre fields. As labor is scarce and high, all wish to manage with as little help as possible. On that account grass may be grown with as much profit as anything, so apply grass to the rotation if con venient. This course, in going around the eight ten-acre fields in eight years, would allow one to have one ten-acre field in corn or roots; second year in wheat, barley, oats, or some other grain-crop seeded to grass; the next two years mowed for hay, and the next four years in pasture. This is about equally divided for the keeping of stock summer and whiter, supposing the owner to feed all the crops on his farm. By using a rotation and feeding all our produce on the farm, we can keep two-thirds more stock than the majority of farmers do at the present time, and farms would be all under cultivation. We should have ten acres in hoed crops, ten acres in grain, and at a very low estimate we should get 300 bushels of potatoes, or 1,000 bushels of rutabagas or mangolds per acre, and four or five hundred bushels of grain annually. In regard to a rotation in the South, grass must still be the basis of reclamation, or of a system to keep the fertility intact. Of late years, the attention of southern planters has been especially directed to this subject, and investigation and trial have shown that the South is not at all deficient in valuable grasses, even outside of clover, alfalfa and cow-peas, which are some times erroneously ranked as grass. A writer of repute on Southern agriculture, and one who writes from experience as a cotton planter in one of the Gulf States, in illustrating his views says: A great defect of southern planters is that they do not keep, in the way of fer tility, what they get. That is to say, when they make a piece of ground, they afterward continue to work it in exhausting crops until all the richness is gone. They can not get posses sion of a goose without ripping up the poor bird. The true policy is not merely- to keep the ground rich, but to make it richer. To illus trate: If a piece of rich land is put in cotton, it may be followed with corn, small grain, with clover being sowed among the corn in August. If the clover is allowed to occupy the ground for two years, and to go to seed, even under a longer rotation than the above, it will not be necessary to sow it again. As soon as the ground is at rest, it will be covered with young clover. Three years ago, on this farm, a piece of ground was put in turnips, manured in the drill with farm-yard manure. The turnips were eaten on the ground by sheep. The next year it was put in corn, the next in cotton worked very clean, and this year in oats. After the oats were cut a fine stand of red clover appeared. This seed was never sown, but must have been in the manure applied three years since to the turnips. This is not a solitary case. Many similar instances have occurred. It is such plants as clover and peas that not only hold but increase the fertility of the soil. As one suited to the agricultural condition of the South, we will suppose a farm of 500 acres of open land under fence. Let 250 acres be devoted to ara ble purposes, and the rest to grazing. The rota tion might be as follows: 1. Cotton and corn in the same field in suitable proportions. 2. Oats sown in August on the cotton and corn land. 3. Rye, or rye and wheat, sown in Sep tember, the land having been twice plowed in order to kill the gerrninant oats. 4 and 5. Clo ver, if the land is in sufficient heart to produce it; if not, the fourth year rest ungrazed, and the fifth year sheep and cattle penned upon it every night during the year, using a portable fence. An ordinary farm of 500 acres will support 500 sheep, besides the crops in the above rotation. The oats and rye will feed them during the winter nearly or entirely, without injury to the grain. Five hands would be sufficient to work such a farm and take care of the live stock. During the first year, our authority thinks, the following results might be expected from an ordinary farm, without manure: 25 acres in cotton, 12 bales, at 15 cents $900 25 acres in corn, 250 bushels, at $1 250 50 acres in onts. 500 bushels, ut I cents 400 2.5 ncres in rye, 200 bushels, nt $1 200 25 acres in whent 151 bushel.., at $1.50 225 Increase and niuthai sales of 500 sheep 500 Wool, 3 pounds pe r head, at 33 cents per I wind 495 Manure, at $1 per head 500 $3,470 Separately each of these products is small, still the aggregate result is more than $600 per hand. Yet this is nearly three times the average pro ducts per hand in the cotton States. That average in Georgia, was estimated to be $209; in South Carolina, $202; in Virginia, $211; in North Carolina, $214. These are the lowest averages The farm products given the case above supposed are the result of the first year of the rotation. Tbe next year the cotton and corn would be more than double by penning 500 sheep at night on fifty acres. It is the writer's experience that ten sheep regularly penned will manure well one acre in a year. Five hundred would, therefore, manure well fifty acres. The appearance of the ground would not indicate this high manuring; but it should be remembered that the liquid manure, which is equal in value to the solid, is not visi ble. If, in addition, a stock of cattle were kept and penned on the same fifty acres, then fertility would be increased in proportion. It should never be forgotten that accumulating, saving, and applying. manure, is as serious a business of the farm as making corn or cotton. At the end of the fifth year of this rotation the -change in the farm would be equal almost to a transformation, the crops being doubled or trebled, without (which is a most important point,) any material increase of labor or other expense. This itnprovement of the soil, accom panied at first by moderate profits, and with a great diminution of vexations and unreliable labor, should be the great end of the Southern planter. It involves a double profit frorn increased production and increased salable value of the soil.