"And what rotation do you practice?"

"Well, the system we have finally settled into and have followed for
many years is to plow up the run-out pasture land and plant to corn.
The second year we usually raise a crop of wheat or oats and seed
down to clover and timothy. We then try to cut hay from the land for
two years, and afterward we use the field for pasture for six or
eight years, or until finally it produces only weeds and foul grass.
Then we cover it with farm manure, so far as we can, and again plow
the land for corn. Wheat and cattle are the principal products sold
from the farm."

"In this way," said Percy, "you grow one crop of corn on the same
field about once in ten or twelve years."

"Yes, about that, and also one, or sometimes two, crops of small
grain. We usually have about seventy-five acres of corn, nearly a
hundred acres of small grain, and we cut hay from somewhat more than
hundred acres, thus leaving perhaps five hundred acres of pasture
land, besides about two hundred acres of timber land which has not
been cultivated for many years."

"Was the timber land that we see about here formerly cultivated?"
asked Percy.

"Oh, yes, nearly all of it was under cultivation when I was a boy,
although some had been allowed to go back to timber even before I
was born. On our own farm we have some timber land that, so far as I
have been able to learn, was never under cultivation; and the