nuiubered its acres by the tliousand and labor was cheap, the planter 

 could afford to clear off tlie native forest groAvth and l)ring fresh fields 

 into cultivation whenever the yields of cotton and tobacco fell below 

 what was considered a profitable figure. The old field, stripped in a 

 few years of its accumulated store of humus, was abandoned and 

 allowed to grow up to weeds and underbrush. The forest again spread 

 across it, and gradually, in the slow course of half a lifetime, the nat- 

 ural enrichment of its surface soil by the growth of the woodland 

 grasses made it ready for another robbery. 



But with the breaking up of the large estates and tlie abrupt change 

 in the labor conditions this method of farming became no longer profit- 

 able or even possible. A planter with fewer acres could no longer 

 afford to await nature's slow process of rejuvenating the soil. A new 

 system of farming was necessary. The land must not be allowed to 

 "go back. " It must be kept up to the highest state of productiveness 

 by a rotation of crops, a judicious use of commercial fertilizers, the 

 growth of nitrogen-fixing leguminous crops, and good and thorough 

 cultivation. To maintain the fertility of any soil the amount of humus 

 or decaying organic matter in it must be kept up. Take two soils of 

 as nearly as possible the same pliysical and geological formation, but 

 the one rich in humus and the other lacking it, and fertilize them with 

 equal quantities of commercial manures; the one which has the most 

 organic matter in its composition will yield the largest crop. The soil 

 on\hat field will stand drought better, will wash less under torrential 

 rains, and be more friable and of better tilth. The average soils of 

 the South need more humus. It can be best supplied by sowing more 

 grass, more permanent pasture lands, more leguminous crops. In a 

 word, plant cowpeas. 



COWPEAS FOR FORAGE. 



There is no forage plant better adapted to the needs and conditions 

 of Southern agriculture than this rank, free-growing annual. It will 

 thrive luxuriantly upon the rich, swampy, cane lands of Louisiana. 

 On the driest and most sterile worn-out uplands it serves the admir- 

 able purpose of supplying a larger quantity and better quality of for- 

 age than any other bean or clover. And whenever a crop of cowpeas 

 has been taken off a field the surface soil is left richer by a good 

 many pounds of that most costly of all plant foods, nitrogen. The 

 roots of the co\\^ea enter deeply into the soil, opening and loosening 

 it far down for the benefit of the roots of the succeeding crops of corn, 

 cotton, and tobacco. It has been found by experiment that the ferti- 

 lizins: value of the roots and stubble of the cowpea are very consider- 

 able, but not as great as that of tlie hay removed from the field. The 

 best and most economical use of this forage crop is, then, to cut for hay, 

 feed to stock, and return the stable manure to the soil. Plowing the 

 whole crop under is less remunerative because there is much needless 



