The second six years is to be a repetition of the first, except that the alsike and red clover will be interchanged, so as to avoid the development of clover sickness if possible; and to keep the soil uniform we may interchange the oats with the peas and beans.

This system provides for the following crops each year: 

40 acres of corn;

20 acres of oats;

10 acres of cowpeas for hay

10 acres of soy beans for seed

80 acres of wheat

20 acres of red clover for hay

20 acres of alsike for seed

20 acres of red clover for seed

20 acres of alsike for pasture, except from June to August.

We also have some permanent pasture which we may use at any time that may seem best.  If necessary we may cut all the clover for hay the fourth year, and we may pasture all summer the sixth year.  We can pasture the corn stalks during the fall and winter when the ground is in suitable condition.

We plan to raise our own horses and perhaps some to sell.  In addition we may raise a few dairy cows for market, but will do little dairying ourselves.

We expect to sell wheat and some corn, and if successful we shall sell some soy beans, alsike seed, and red clover seed.

How soon we shall be able to get this system fully under way I shall not try to predict; but we shall work toward this end unless we think we have good reason to modify the plan.

I hope to make the initial application of limestone five tons per acre, but after the first six years this will be reduced to two or three tons.  I also plan to apply at least one ton per acre of fine-ground raw phosphate every six years until the phosphorus content of the plowed soil approaches two thousand pounds per acre, after which the applications will probably be reduced to about one-half ton per acre each rotation.

There are three things that mother and I are fully decided upon: 

First, that we shall use ground limestone in sufficient amounts to make the soil a suitable home for clover.

Second, that we shall apply fine-ground rock phosphate in such amounts as to positively enrich our soil in that very deficient element.

Third, that we shall reserve a three-rod strip across every forty-acre field as an untreated check strip to which neither limestone nor phosphate shall ever be applied, and that we shall reserve another three-rod strip to which limestone is applied without phosphate, while the remaining thirty-seven acres are to receive both limestone and phosphate.

Thus we shall always have the satisfaction of seeing whatever clearly apparent effects are produced by this fundamental treatment, even though we may not be able to bother with harvesting these check strips separate from the rest of the field.

We have based our decision regarding the use of ground limestone very largely upon the long-continued work of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station as to the comparative effects of ground limestone and burned lime, which is supported, to be sure, by all comparative tests so far as our Illinois soil investigators have been able to learn.