_First year._--Flax, preceded by green corn. After the flax, carrots.
_Second year._--Cole-seed; then turnips.
_Third year._--Wheat; then spurry.
These courses are sufficient to give a pretty correct idea of
the Flemish system of rotation. It will be seen that wheat never
succeeds to clover: it almost always follows flax, hemp, cole-seed
or potatoes. Clover greatly encourages the growth of dog grass,
which, if not completely torn up, with all its roots, the least
fibres of the latter which escape, will each produce a new plant,
greatly to the prejudice of the wheat. In England the fields are
always more or less infected with this pest, while the practice
pursued in Flanders completely protects them against it--Wheat is
also materially benefited in Flanders, by the repeated digging up,
and hoeings, which potatoes require; and by the abundance, and
judicious application of manure, spread during the first year of
the course. This loses only part of its fertilizing salts, leaving
the earth in a high state of fertility, which the Flemish farmer
knows well how to augment to the requisite degree without causing
the wheat to shed; a circumstance apt to occur, where too great a
quantity of manure is used.
The following comparative tables, shewing the value which is
obtained from one acre in _four_ years, by a farmer, following
the Norfolk course, in England, and that obtained, from the same
space in _three_ years according to the Flemish course, will best
illustrate the superior advantages of the latter over the former: