The La Jara chronicle., 1908-11-27
Rotation of Crops.

necessary to make farming success
full. For many reasons which are
well known, our soils will not pro-
duce paying crops if planted to the
same thing year after year. Farmers
have understood this since time
immemorial and under the suppo-
sition that the soil needed rest the
old practice was to leave a part of
the land fallow every year. Under
this system only one-half of the
land was farmed elch season, leav-
ing the other half idle. Since the
reasons for crop failures have be-
come known and the discovery that
one crop may fertilize the land for
another, rotation of crops has taken
the place of following and all the
land is farmed every year. Our
farmers must keep up the fertility
of their soil or they will starve out
of business.
Using manures or artificial fer
tilizers is all right and recommend
ed when it can be done with profit.
Leaving the land fallow is not
recommended because it is old, out
of date, expensive and unnecessary.
The rational method is rotation of
crops which will keep up the fer
tility for many years if properly
done. Farming should be carried
on in such way that the soil will
become better instead of poorer
every year and this may be done if
rational practice is followed. There
are two kinds of crop rotation. One
simply rests the soil for one crop
while It'll producing another. Such
a rotation would be planting pcta-
toes one or more years, followed by
grain or grass. Growing potatoes
would not enrich the soil but would
act like fallow in resting it for
another crop of grain.
The other kind of rotation both
rests and enriches the soil. Such
a rotation would be planting root
crop like potatoes or beets one or
more years, which would rest the
soil from the crop grown before
and put it in a better tilth by the
cultivation and stirring it would re-
ceive. The root crop may be fol-
lowed with grain one or two years
because the soil is in condition to
produce IL large crop. After the
grain the land may be seeded to a
leguminous crop like peas or alfalfa,
which will take nitrogen from the
air and add organic matter to the
soil and thus enriching it for sue
ceeding crops. In working out his
rotation the farmer may make any
kind of combination which he finds
is profitable.
The simplest wheat rotation
would be growing potatoes one or
two years and wheat one year or
instead of growing so many pota-
toes grow peas one year and wheat
the next Planting peas and wheat
alternate years has been a success
full rotation in the San Luis valley
where the altitude is greater than
ON the plains. One of the best
wheat rotations is to seed the land
to alfalfa, leaving it in the crop
from three to five years. Then plow
the alfalfa and plant to wheat two
years, seeding alfalfa again with
the second crop of wheat. Wheat
is considered a better nurse crop
for alfalfa than any other grain, be-
cause it produces less stem or bot
tom leaves to shade the young al
falfa. but this system is gradually
going out of practice among the
better farmers. What has been
said about the failow does not APP
ply to dry farming under the
Campbell system nor should the
seeding of alfalfa be done on virgin
land when spuds or oats would do
a good deal better