. Cyclopedia of farm crops : a popular survey of crops and crop-making methods in the United States and Canada. Agriculture -- Canada; Agriculture -- United States; Farm produce -- Canada; Farm produce -- United States. rotation of plants is determined largely by the presence or absence of such excreta. Some of the reasons why rotation-farming is considered to be advan- tageous (under present teaching) may now be mentioned. (1) One crop tends to correct the faults of another crop. The contin- uous growing of one crop usually results in the injuring of the soil in some respect; a rotation tends
. Cyclopedia of farm crops : a popular survey of crops and crop-making methods in the United States and Canada. Agriculture -- Canada; Agriculture -- United States; Farm produce -- Canada; Farm produce -- United States. rotation of plants is determined largely by the presence or absence of such excreta. Some of the reasons why rotation-farming is considered to be advan- tageous (under present teaching) may now be mentioned. (1) One crop tends to correct the faults of another crop. The contin- uous growing of one crop usually results in the injuring of the soil in some respect; a rotation tends to overcome and eliminate such effects. It evens up and works out the inequalities. The general average of many or several kinds of treatment is better than the effects of one treat- ment. (2) Plants differ considerably in the proportions of the kinds of foods that they take from the soil. In rotations, the different plants make the maximum of their draft on the soil at different times in the year, thereby allowing the progress of the seasons to even up the inequalities. (3) By a judicious choice of crops, different plant-food materials may be incorporated in the soil in available condition, through the decay of the parts plowed under or left in the ground. The most marked benefit of this kind probably comes from incorporation of nitrogen com- pounds through the use of leguminous plants. These plants have the power, by means of their root nodules, of fixing the free atmospheric nitrogen of the soil; and the new compounds are turned back to the soil in condition to be utilized by plants that do not have the power to appropriate the nitrogen of the air. Since nitro- gen is the most expensive and usually the most easily lost of the plant-food elements that the farmer has to buy, this role of the leguminous plants is most important. It is significant that most of the early rotations, developing before rational expla- nations of them could be given, comprised some legume. (4) Some
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