FALLOW

In Agriculture, lands are said to be under fallow when they are without a regular crop of corn or pulse. A naked fallow is one in which the soil remains a whole year without any crop whatever; and a turnip or green crop fallow is one in which the lands after being without a crop from harvest till the beginning of summer, and being properly laboured during that period, are sown with turnips or other similar crops in rows, and the ground cultivated in the intervals. Fallowing was practised by the Romans on all soils whatever, and has been continued through the dark ages, in all the cultivated parts of Europe, so as to have become, till lately, a general habit in the treatment of arahle lands. The practice of taking two corn crops, and then allowing the land to rest or lie fallow, was, till the commencement of the present century, prevalent throughout Europe; and it is still a very common practice in most parts of the Continent. It appears to have been first broken through by the Flemings about the end of the 10th century; a.id subsequently in Britain, with the culture of turnips, above a century and a half later. Fallows, under the most improved systems of agriculture, are no longer had recourse to in the case of free or easily worked soils, where turnip fallows are made, or drill crops of legumes are substituted; but in very strong clays they are still found nece ary, and this will probably continue to long-continued be the case culture,till by "the the strong" frequent clays drain become system,"friable and and fit for the drill husbandry, like the sandy loams and other free soils. [s. 456]