being one year grazed and then put to corn, the maximum yield may be reasonably expected. This winter manuring costs the least of all methods, and probably saves the most of the value of the manure of any known to me."

Crop rotation and mixed farming go hand in hand.There are kinds of farming where mixed farming is not practical, trucking and market gardening being examples of farming systems that are not concerned with live stock and, hence, with crop rotation except to a limited extent only. Then, too, there are sections where the plow cannot be used at all. And so these lands may be given over to trees and to pasture. But the greater part of the country is adapted to the production of a great variety of crops, and to the support at the same time of large numbers of live stock. Wherever the latter conditions prevail, the land, if otherwise treated properly, will maintain its fertility and continue the production of remunerative crops. These things being true, it follows that live stock and mixed farming should not be disconnected from special lines of farming. The cotton farmer needs cattle and sheep and hogs to consume his cow-pea forage, his clover forage and his corn forage that were produced as a part of the crop system to maintain the cotton lands. The wheat farmer needs live stock for a proper utilization of straw and clover and alfalfa, that are a part of good wheat farming. The corn farmer needs hogs and cattle to consume grain and stover and the rotation crops, that his lands may remain fertile and his farming plant made better. Humus and manure must be had. They may come from green crops or from city stables, but their use must never be ignored, else the time will come suddenly when neither chemicals nor tillage will avail and when the land will be thrown back on Nature for restoration

and for a renewal of life. Then crop rotation is renewed, diversified farming follows, and the land becomes fertile and productive again.

Some well-tried rotations.-There ought to be many kinds of rotations, for rotations ought to suit the farmer, the farm, and the district. Hence, no tight-bound rules should prevail at any discussion of this subject.

In suggesting a few rotations, it is for the purpose of suggesting that they be modified to suit individual con

But then a good deal of plant food is removed, and the food value is below either clover or alfalfa

ditions as nearly as possible, but, above all, for the rotation you ought to keep in mind these things:

There is to be a money crop.
There is to be a cultivated crop.

There is to be one or more legume crops.
There is to be live-stock feeding crop.

Rotations planned on these principles are certain to secure the most satisfactory results only. Take this old rotation-wheat, clover, potatoes. Here is what you have: Two money crops-wheat and potatoes; a cultivated crop-potatoes; a legume crop-clover; and two live-stock crops-wheat, straw, and clover.

Take this old rotation-corn, wheat, clover, grass-a four-year rotation. It may be modified by being in corn two years, or in wheat two years, or in grass for mowing or grazing two years. Still, it is the same; it meets the four conditions-money crops, the cultivated crop, the legume crop, and the live-stock crop. Why have you no plan in operation that secures to your land a change in crops? The power is in your hand; who shall hinder you from using it?

CHAPTER XXIX

THE OLD, WORN-OUT SOILS: WHAT MAY WE DO FOR THEM

Maybe some of your tillable land is unproductive; it does not give you good crops: it often fails in rewarding you with returns commensurate with the labor and expense you have bestowed upon it. You may be dejected and despondent over the outlook. You wonder does it pay, and the question comes, the same one again and again, What may I do to change this state of affairs? How may I restore these lands, now so unresponsive and so unattractive, to their old positions for doing things—of raising crops that shall be worth the effort, the labor, and the expense?

Just take comfort in this: you are not alone in your troubles; your difficulties are not visited upon you only; your lands are not the sole examples of their kind, requiring much and returning little. All over the country their like exists-worn out, depleted, exhausted, almost dead.

But here is the comfort: These soils possess possibilities and may be restored to high productive power, provided you do a few simple things. You will be rewarded most richly if you do these:

1. Improve the physical life of the soil.

2. Call tillage into service.

3. Get humus into the soil.

4. Keep live stock from tramping and injuring wet lands.

5. Come into close contact with every sort of manure. 6. Grow legumes constantly.

7. Let green manures help. 8. Rotate crops on the land.

Improving the physical condition the first step.-You will make no mistake in giving prominence to the physical improvement of the soils. It is the first step needed in the work of rejuvenation. A soil offers little when its

The seed-bed has been made well and the mulch is holding the water for the crop

physical life is at a low ebb. A plant can give you but a small harvest if its soil home is distasteful to it. Just remember these two facts. It may be you will find your whole trouble located here. Banish the trouble and your question may be answered, your problem may be solved. I have suggested heretofore what may be done in helping these old, depleted lands. It rests with you to diag