Vickipedia

ROTATION OF CROPS. The plants like the animals of the farm differ much in their habits, and in the different sorts of food on which they subsist. The broad-leafed clovers, turnips, and mangold abstract from the air a large proportion of the materials of their growth; whilst the narrower-leafed grains and grasses, especially if their seeds are ripened, partake more largely of mineral food withdrawn from the soil. The cereals require for their healthy nutrition large supplies of phosphoric acid and silica; leguminous plants devour a large share of lime; turnips, carrots, and clover take up a great amount of potash. Corn-crops, occupying the ground during the greater part of the year, favor the growth of weeds; well-tended root-crops, on the other hand, afford better opportunity for deep culture, for the extirpation of weeds, for the convenient application of manures; whilst, being in great part consumed on the land, they raise its fertility. Mainly’ from such considerations, the farmer of arable land is led to grow a succession of dissimilar plants, or, in other words, to adopt a rotation of crops. The cereals exhausting the farm, en account of their ripened seeds being sold off. are generally alternated with fallow, root, or cleansing crops, or with beans and peas, which occupy a kind of intermediate position between the cereals and the roots; whilst clovers or grasses are taken at intervals of six or eight years. The rotation most suitable for a particular farm is, however, greatly modified by various circumstances, and especially by the nature of the soil, climate, markets, available supplies of extra manures, amount of live-stock kept, £c. That course of cropping is evidently the most desirable which will economically secure, with thorough cleanness of the soil, a high and increasing state of fertility.

Many rotations are based upon the Norfolk or four-course system, which consists of (1) Clover or mixed grass seeds; (3) Wheat, or in many parts of Scotland, oats; (3) Turnips, Swedes, mangold, potatoes, or bare fallow; (4) Barley. The details of this system are generally as follows. The clovers or grasses are mown or grazed; when cut, they are either used green or are dried for hay; the second crop is carted home for the cattle or horses; near towns, it is sold off; or it is consumed on the ground in racks by sheep, which on most highly cultivated farms receive besides a daily allowance of cake or corn. In districts where town-manure can be obtained, a top dressing is applied as soon as the first crop of grass is cut. On the poor and worse cultivated soils, the grass-crop occasionally remains down for two, or even three years, thus extending a four into a five or six years’ rotation. The clovers or mixed seeds are ploughed up in autumn, and followed generally in England by wheat, and in Scotland by oats. These crops are now usually drilled, to admit of horse and hand hoeing. After harvest, the stubble is, if possible, cleaned by the scarifier, grubber, or plough and harrows; or, where the management for several years has been good, any patches of couch-grass or other weeds are best forked out by hand. The land, especially if heavy, or intended for mangold drilled on the flat, as practised in the drier parts of England, may then be manured and deeply ploughed : the grubber and harrows, in April or May, suffice to prepare for the drilling of mangold or Swedes. Heavy land, intended either for roots or barley, should, in spring, be ploughed or disturbed as little as possible. In Scotland, and the cooler moist climates of the north and west of England, turnips and potatoes are grown on raised drills or balks, in which the manure lies immediately underneath the plant.

Frequent horse and hand hoeing should insure the thorough cleaning of the crop. Unless in the neighborhood of towns, where it is greatly more profitable to sell off the whole of the root-crop, part of the Swedes or mangold is taken home for the cattle, but the largest portion is consumed by sheep in the field. After the fallow or cleaning crop, another cereal crop is grown : under the Norfolk system, this is generally barley, with which the clovers or seeds are sown out. Where sewage or tank water is available, Italian rye-grass is often used, and on land in high condition, early large and repeated cuttings are obtained; but rye-grass has the disadvantage of being a worse preparation than clover for the wheat-crop which usually follows. The chief failing of the four-course system consists in the frequent recurrence of clover, which cannot be successfully grown oftener than once in six or eight years. To obviate this difficulty, one-half of the clover quarter is now often put under beans, peas, or vetches, thus keeping the grass or clover seeds eight years apart.

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 fallows are, however, less frequent than formerly, being now confined to the most refactory of clays, or to subjects that are so hopelessly full of weeds as to require for their extirpation several weeks of summer weather, and the repeated use of the steam or horse ploughs, 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 afterwards cleaned: this practice is extensively pursued on the heavier lands in the mid-land and southern counties of England.

In such localities, the following system is approved of—(1) The clover leas are 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 artificial manures, cake, and corn; (6) A fallow, or fallow crop, deeply and thoroughly cultivated, and well manured, comes 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; (o) Bare fallow or fallow crop, usually including a considerable breadth of potatoes; (6) Wheat; (7) Barley, with which the clovers or mixed grasses are sown. Under this system, it is difficult, with so few cleaning crops, to keep the land clean; roots, besides, are not produced in quantities sufficient properly to supply either cattle or sheep during the winter. To remedy these defects, roots may be introduced 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-farming 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 profitable to grow two root-crops consecutively; thus, after turnips, Swedes, cabbage, or mangold, well manured from the town or farmyard, and eaten off by sheep, potatoes of superior quality are produced with one ploughing, and a dose of portable manure. Specialities of management occur in almost every locality. In Essex, winter-beans follow 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 ninny 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 appropriate 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 twenty 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 in 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 be 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 be 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 in good season; much work is accomplished in autumn; treading and poaching of the surface is avoided; whilst a larger breadth 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 raise rapidly its manurial condition.

As agricultural education and enterprise extend, fixed rotations will be less regarded. The market-gardener, who extracts a great deal more from his land than the farmer has hitherto been able to do, does not adhere to any definite system of cropping. If the farm is kept clean and in improving condition, there can be no harm in growing whatever 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, preventing 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 he is fit to be intrusted with the use of the land, ought to be permitted to grow or sell off any crop he pleases, provided an equivalent in manure be brought back. On well-cultivated land, in good condition, it is now the practice of the best farmers to 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 from the farm, may be fairly compensated for by large doses of town-dung or of sewage. The plant-food disposed of in 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.