240. AGRICULTURE, Rotation of crops.—[further continued].
I find the degradation of
my lands by ill usage much beyond what I had
expected, and at the same time much more
open land than I had calculated on. One of
these circumstances forces a milder course of
cropping on me, and the other enables me to
adopt it. I drop, therefore, two crops in my
rotation, and instead of five crops in eight
years, take three in six years, in the following
order. 1. Wheat. 2. Corn and potatoes
in the strongest moiety, potatoes alone or
pease alone in the other moiety, according to
its strength. 3. Wheat or rye. 4. Clover. 6.
Folding and buckwheat dressing. In such of
my fields as are too much worn for clover, I
propose to try St. Foin, which I know will
grow in the poorest land, bring plentiful
crops, and is a great ameliator.—
To John Taylor.
Ford ed., vi, 506.
(M.
1794)
