After harvesting operations had been
completed, and all through the winter, the cattle were allowed to range
at will among the stubble of the arable fields, and over the meadow
land, as also over the waste, which was more properly their domain.
As it was impossible to raise crops year after year from the same fields
without gravely impoverishing the soil, this system was exchanged in
some places for another--that of cropping one or two fields and allowing
the other to lie fallow. This modification was not always judged
requisite to prevent the exhaustion or deterioration of the land; and
thus there arose a third--what is termed the "three-field" system, by
which out of three arable fields two were under cultivation at the same
time, one lying fallow. The third plan was that which ultimately met
with most favour. In the early autumn the field that had lain fallow
through the summer was ploughed and sown with wheat, rye, or other corn;
and in the spring the stubble of the field that had yielded the last
crop of wheat was ploughed up, and barley or oats sown in it. The third
field, in which the previous crop had been barley, retained the stubble
till the early days of June. It was then ploughed up and left in that
condition until a fresh crop was sown in the autumn. Professor
Cunningham, whose account we here follow, has furnished a convenient
chart or diagram which we venture to reproduce as an aid to the
comprehension of the subject:
I.
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