ing" requires for five acres of land.
And is this not true of half the farms in the United States to-day? What
then, shall we do?

The best thing to do, _theoretically_, is this: Any land that is
producing a fair crop of grass or clover, let it lie. Pasture it or mow
it for hay. If you have a field of clayey or stiff loamy land, break it
up in the fall, and summer-fallow it the next year, and sow it to wheat
and seed it down with clover. Let it lie two or three years in clover.
Then break it up in July or August, "fall-fallow" it, and sow it with
barley the next spring, and seed it down again with clover.

Sandy or light land, that it will not pay to summer-fallow, should have
all the manure you can make, and be plowed and planted with corn.
Cultivate thoroughly, and either seed it down with the corn in August,
or sow it to barley or oats next spring, and seed it down with clover.
I say, _theoretically_ this is the best plan to adopt. But practically
it may not be so, because it may be absolutely necessary that we should
raise something that we can sell at once, and get money to live upon or
pay interest and taxes. But the gentlemen who so strenuously advocate
high farming, are not perhaps often troubled with considerations of this
kind. Meeting them, therefore, on their own ground, I contend that in my
case "high farming" would not be as profitable as the plan hinted at
above.

The rich alluvial low land is to be pastured or mown; the upland to be
broken up only when necessary, and when it is plowed to be plowed well
and worked thoroughly, and got back again into clover as soon as
possible. The hay and pasture from the low land, and the clover and
straw and stalks from the upland, would enable us to keep a good many
cows and sheep, with more or less pigs, and there would be a big pile of
manure in the yard every spring. And when this is once obtained, you can
get along much more pleasantly and profitably.

"But," I may be asked, "when you have got this pile of manure can not
you adopt high farming?" No. My manure pile would contain say: 60 tons
of clover-hay; 20 tons wheat-straw; 25 tons oat, barley, and pea-straw;
40 tons meadow-hay; 20 tons corn-stalks; 20 tons corn, oats, and other
grain; 120 tons mangel-wurzel and turnips.

This would give me about 500 tons of well-rotted manure. I should want
200 tons of this for the mangels and turnips, and the 300 tons I should
want to top-dress 20 acres of grass land int