CROP ROTATION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 112, 14 May 1914, Page 6

CROP ROTATION.

' Tbe Ohio experiment station^ !hW Tieefn opriducti«g for 10 y©a>rs a fcraryeatr rotation of corn, oats, wheat, enod clover. In the fall . (autumn) •after the seed crop of clover has been takem off, the land receives a dressing of eight to tea tons per acre of stable manure, Which has been xeinfofreed during accumulation .with, about 50 'fpouoids per toil of either phosphate or raw phosphate" irodk. -No fall ploughing is done, for the /reason■■;that tins land, washes badly andi if ploughed in

the fall is likely to be badly gullied by spring. Moreover, the manuring is not always completed until the early part) of winter. After ploughing in. the spring the land receives a. dressing of either half a. tori of burnt lime or a. ton of ground limestone, pe>r acre, whichever .pan be got upon the land, "in the quantities named at the least* cost. This is stirred in with the 'ha wow or cultivator, but no other fertiliser is added to the corn. The oats receive no fertilising;, but the wheat receives a mixture, of about* 200 pounds isteamed bone-meal, 100 pounds ■acid phosphate, ' 'ajnd 40 pounds of muriate of potash in the fall, followed in the spring by 60 pounds of nitrate of soda, unless the growth shoukl be very rank, in which case tbLe quantity of nitrate is reduced or omitted altogether. The land upotn which this work is conducted is a sil'ty clay lying over sandstones —a soil in-tfifl-mediate between what would be called a sandy soil and clay. , Unfertilised and unmanured land on the same farm has been yielding 30 bushels each) of coiii and oats, 13 bushels of wheat, and a ton of ihay per acre during the period over which this work has been conducted. In the five-yeatr rotation of corn, oats, jvheat, clover, and timothy, the yields iuxder the treatment above described have been 77 bushels of shelled com> •equivalent to 154 bushels of eaa-s, 60 bushels of oats, 33 bushels of wheati, and three and a-balf tons of faay per acre. The cost of the floats, limie, and fertiliser has been;about £3 for each four,-yeair rotation, or 15* an-

nually