Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/367

Rh OP CROPS.] belongs to the agricultural chemist or vegetable physiologist, to whom we willingly leave the task. What we have to do with is the fact itself, and its important bearing on agri cultural practice. There is no natural tendency in the soil to deterioration. If at any time, therefore, the earth fails to yield its increase for the use of man, it is owing to his own ignorance and cupidity, and not to any defect in the beneficent arrangements of the Creator. The aim, then, of the agriculturist, and the test of his skill, is to obtain from his farm abundant crops at a remunerative cost, and without impairing its future productiveness. In order to this, two conditions are indispensable, first, that the elements of fertility abstracted from the soil by the crops removed from it be duly and adequately restored ; and, second, that it be kept free from weeds. The cereal grains, whose seeds constitute the staple food of the human family, are neces sarily the most important and valuable of our ordinary crops. The stated removal from a farm of the grain pro duced on it, and its consumption elsewhere, is too severe a drain upon its productive powers to admit of. these crops being grown every j r ear on the whole, or greater part of it, without speedily impairing its fertility. Supposing, how ever, that this waste could be at once repaired by the annual return to the soil of manure equivalent in constituent elements to the produce removed, the length of time which grain-crops occupy the soil, and their habit of growth, inter pose peculiar difficulties in the way of cleaning it thoroughly, either before they are sown, or while they occupy the ground. Again, although bread-corn is the most important product of our soil, other commodities, such as butcher-meat, dairy produce, vegetables, wool, and flax, are indispensably re quired. The economical culture of the soil demands the employment of animal power, which, to be profitably used, must be so distributed as to fill up the year. The mainten ance of the working cattle, and of other live stock, implies the stated culture of a large amount of herbage and forage. Now, these varied conditions are duly met by cultivating grain and cattle crops alternately, and in about eqiial pro portions. In carrying out these general principles, much discrimination is required in selecting the particular plants best adapted to the soil, climate, and other circumstances, of each farm, and in arranging them in the most profitable sequences ; for not only is it necessary duly to alternate grain and green crops, but, in general, there is a necessity, or at least a high expediency, in so varying the species or varieties of the latter class as to prolong, as much as possible, the periodic recurrence of any one of them on the same field. In settling upon a scheme of cropping for any particular farm, regard must be had to its capabilities, to the markets available for the disposal of its products, and to the command of manure. When these things have been maturely considered, it is always beneficial to conduct the cropping of a farm upon a settled scheme. The number of men and horses required to work it is regulated chiefly by the extent of the fallow-break, which it is therefore desirable to keep as near to an average annual breadth as possible. When the lands of a farm vary much as regards fertility, fitness for particular crops, and proximity to the homestead, they must be so apportioned as to make the divisions alloted to each class of crops as equal as possible in all respects, taking one year with another. Unless this is done, those fluctuations in the gross produce of farms which arise from varying seasons are needlessly, it may happen ruinously, aggravated ; or such an accumulation of labour is thrown on certain years which may prove un favourable ones as to weather, that the work is neither done well nor in due season. No better rotation has yet been devised for friable soils of fair quality than the well-known four-field or Norfolk- system. By this course half the arable lands are in &quot;rain- 341 crops, and half in cattle-crops, annually. It is indeed true that, in the way in which this course has hitherto been usually worked, both turnips and clover have recurred so frequently (every fourth year) on the same fields, that they have become subject to disease, and their produce excessively precarious. But the excellence of this course is, that its main features can be retained, and yet endless variation be introduced in its details. For example, instead of a rigid one-fourth of the land being each year under turnips, barley, clover, and wheat or oats, respectively, half only of the barley division is frequently in practice now sown with clover seeds, and the other half cropped in the following year with beans, peas, potatoes, or vetches. On the same set of fields, coming round again to the same point, the treat ment is reversed by the beans, &amp;lt;fec., and clover, being made to change places. An interval of eight years is thus sub stituted for one of four, so far as these two crops are con cerned. Italian rye-grass, unmixed with any other plant, is now frequently taken in lieu of clover on part of the division usually allocated to it, and proves a grateful change both to the land and to the animals which consume it. In like manner, instead of sowing turnips unvaryingly every fourth year on each field, a portion of the annual division allotted to this crop can advantageously be cropped with mangel-wurzel, carrots, or cabbages, care being taken to change the site occupied by each when the same fields again come in turn. The same end is even so far gained by alternating Swedish with yellow or globe turnips. It is also found expedient, either systematically or occasionally, to sow a field with clover and pasture grasses immediately after turnips, without a grain crop, and to allow it to remain in pasture for four years. A corresponding extent of the other land is meanwhile kept in tillage, and two grain crops in succession are taken on a requisite portion to equalise the main divisions, both as respects amount of labour and the different staple products. A closer cover of grasses and a better pasture is obtained in this way than by first taking the customary grain crop after turnips; the land is rested and invigorated for future tillage, the outlay on clover and grass-seeds somewhat diminished, and the land better ma naged for the interests of all concerned than by a rigid adherence to the customary rotation. Section 2. Restrictive Clauses in Leases Hurtful. It is common enough for landlords, or their agents, to tie down the tenantry over large estates to the rigid observ ance of some pet rotation of their own. In an unimproved state of agriculture, and for a tenantry deficient both in capital and intelligence, such trammels, kindly enforced, may be as beneficial to them as to their landlord. But when the culture of the soil is undertaken by men of good education, who bring to the business ample capital, and skill to use it to the best advantage, such restrictions are much more likely to do harm than good to both parties. It is to be observed in regard to those restrictive clauses usually inserted in farm-leases, such as, that two grain- crops shall never be taken in immediate succession ; that no hay, straw, or turnips, shall be sold from the farm ; that only certain limited quantities of potatoes or flax shall be grown ; that land shall be two or more years in grass, (fee., that they all proceed on the supposition that the farm is to maintain its own fertility. They obviously do not con template the stated purchase of large quantities of guano, bones, and similar extraneous manures, or the consumption by live stock of linseed-cake, grain, or other auxiliaries to the green crops produced on the farm. Now, not only are such clauses incompatible with such a system of farming as we h;&amp;gt;ve just now indicated, but their direct tendency, if enforced, is to hinder a tenant from adopting it even when disposed to do so. We hear now-a-days of tena)its wno are