Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Crop

CROP, usually signifies the corn gathered off a field, in harvest.

Till the middle of last century, the best common courses of farming in Britain, consisted of a fallow, which, by several ploughings, broke up and cleaned the ground, but left the soil exposed to the scorching rays of the sun, during the hottest season, without any shading crop; and on this the farmer sowed wheat, which was succeeded by peas or beans; then followed barley, or oats (or both) on one part of the farm, for the space of ten or twenty years: the other moiety, during that time, being laid out in common pasture grasses. When any change was to be made, the part in grass was ploughed and prepared, and then thrown into the same course or rotation of crops as above: that which had been in crops, was sown with mixed grass-seeds (but not clover), to lie for ten or twenty years, as before. The whole arable part of the farm thus parcelled, included neither the homestead nor the standing meadow; so that an arable farm of 300 acres admitted of 150 being in grass lay, or old field, and 150 in crops. The fields which bore crops, were seldom equal in quantity, but in the following plan we have ventured to consider them so, for the better comparing of the old and new systems:

No. I.
Acres.
37 1/2	fallow, naked, yields nothing.
		Bushels.
37 1/2	wheat	555
37 1/2	peas, or beans,	555
37 1/2	barley	740
150	in crops, 4 fields	1850
150	in grass, or lay.
300	acres.

The fallow, wheat, and barley crops, are exhausting, that is, they deprive the land by exhalation of part of the vegetable nutriment deposited in it; the peas, or beans, which operate as a manure, ameliorate; but the rays of the sun on the naked soil, in the hot season, cause a considerable portion of the essence of the manure, and also of the ground, gradually to exhale.

The new system of rotation or courses of crops, was introduced about the middle of the 18th century, and is founded on the following principles, namely; 1. To fallow, and at the same time to have a shading and ameliorating mild crop growing on the fallow, while it is under the plough or hoe; 2. Never to sow any species of corn in succession; 3. To sow clover, or an equivalent on every field of small grain; and lastly, by means of a course of well selected crops, to prevent the soil from resting, hardening, and running into weeds.

By this method, entire forms are continued in a constant rotation under 4, 6, or eight divisions, or fields, in such a manner as to improve the soil, and consequently to produce a larger income.

No. II.
Acres.		Bushels.
60	barley	1200
60	clover
60	wheat	900
60	clover
60	peas, or beans	900
		3000
300	acres, in 5 fields.

According to this new course, the wheat and barley exhaust the soil, while the clover and peas, or beans, ameliorate and improve it.

When we compare these two systems of rotations of crops, the latter is evidently the most profitable, as the 120 acres in clover are far superior to the 150 acres of common grasses on the hide-bound soil of the lay, or old field; and the grain and straw are more advantageous in the proportion of 300 to 185. Clover, peas, and beans (if sown in drills, and kept clean from weeds by hoeing), are inoffensive, and even ameliorating.—They all shade the ground during the hottest season of the year. Every kind of corn impoverishes the soil, and, if small, lets in weeds, which, together with rest, bind and foul the land.

The superiority of the new course of crops is still farther evinced, by a series of conclusive experiments made by Mr. A. Young. He divided 3 acres of old upland pasture into 36 squares, of 9 roads each, which he planted with beans, peas, wheat, barley, oats, cabbages, clover, potatoes, &c. in different rotations, with various success. From these comparative trials he drew the following practical inferences, which we recommend to the serious attention of our agricultural readers:

1. That potatoes exhaust the land more than any other fallow crop hitherto tried; and, in some courses, to a greater degree than barley, or even wheat.

2. That potatoes will not yield a tolerable crop, even on old lay newly broken up, without the aid of dung, and not a profitable one, even with it.

3. That barley, beans, and oats, succeed much better than wheat, after potatoes.

4. That beans are the most valuable fallow crop on new land of this quality.

5. That the preservation of the fertility of old turf depends much on the number of bean-crops introduced; as, the more frequently they are planted, the better the succeeding crops of white corn will be: and three successive years of beans are attended with an extraordinary produce of wheat.

6. That beans and barley, and beans and wheat, alternately, are both courses of great produce and advantage.

7. That the introduction of beans, in bad rotations, tends to remedy the evil of such courses.

8. That successive crops of white corn destroy that fertility, which different rotations will preserve in new ground; and that three such crops will render the land extremely foul and unprofitable.

9. That the two most productive courses are beans and barley, alternately; the former being the most abundant, but the latter the most profitable, from the saving of tillage.

10. That four crops of beans, and one of wheat, even with the drawback of one year's cabbages, is the third course in profit; and the land will be left in such order, as to make it perhaps the first.

11. That the most unproductive, and in a still greater degree, the more unprofitable courses, are those in which turnips, cabbages, and potatoes most frequently occur.

12. That, on such new land, oats are the best white grain that can be sown, as they yield very extraordinary and valuable crops.

The same intelligent cultivator, consequently, recommends the following course, which is calculated to prove the most profitable:

1. Beans.		5. Beans.
2. Oats.		6. Oats.
3. Beans.		7. Clover.
4. Oats.		8. Beans.
9. Wheat.

The profit of beans in every rotation, by which the soil is not exhausted, is decisive; and oats are far more productive than either barley or wheat, while the old turf is decaying; because clover will revive the fertility, which beans in the 8th year will not lessen; and wheat cannot fail, after those two successive ameliorating crops, to yield a plentiful harvest. In justice to Mr. Young, we shall observe, that he proposes such a rotation only for new land, as there are, circumstances that would render it inapplicable to other fields. For many interesting particulars, relative to this great subject, we must refer the reader to the 23d vol. of Annals of Agriculture, in which he will find it minutely and perspicuously treated.