The Bulletin. 11 



case of the green crops, entirely avoided. Do not fail or hesitate to 

 use green manure for cotton as it is the cheapest, and, on the whole, the 

 best manure you can apply to the land. 



METHODS OF HANDLING GREEN MANURE IN PIEDMONT SECTION. 



If cowpeas are used they should be planted between the cotton rows 

 in May or June or at the time the cotton is planted. The cotton may be 

 planted in 5-feet rows with a row of cowpeas between. When the peas 

 have matured seed, these may be picked and the vines left in the row. 

 After the first or second picking of the cotton sow a bushel of rye or 15 

 pounds of crimson clover seed or both, broadcast, to the acre and harrow 

 in between the rows before the cotton opens again sufficiently to be 

 knocked out. Let the green crop grow till about two weeks before you 

 are ready to plant cotton, then take a sharp disc harrow and disc the 

 land two or three times, cutting the old cotton stalks, peavines, and the 

 green crop into short bits after which the land should be plowed 

 thoroughly some eight or ten inches deep and disced once more. This 

 done, the land may be prepared for cotton in the ordinary manner. 



Do not fail to cut all vegetation into small bits before plowing under. 

 We hear a great deal about the "souring" of land by the too liberal 

 use of green manure and many farmers are afraid to use it to any 

 extent on this account. 



The real explanation of this ''souring" effect lies, generally, in the 

 method of handling the green manuring crop and not in the subsequent 

 development of an excess of organic acid in the soil. 



The crop is generally plowed down with a good strong team hitched 

 to a big plow on which is fastened a chain for the purpose of enabling 

 the plowman to "wrap up the vines" and bury them deep enough to 

 be out of the way of subsequent cultivation. This places a layer of 

 very porous vegetable matter some two or three inches thick, say eight 

 inches under the surface. The crop is then planted and cultivated 

 over this bed of vegetable matter, and if the season is at all dry the 

 farmer is likely to lose his crop. Why ? If the farmer should examine 

 this vegetable matter some weeks after it was plowed under, and when 

 his crop is looking worst, he would find the soil just under this bed of 

 vines, etc., almost as wet as mud, while the soil just above it would likely 

 be as dry as dust. This, then, is the explanation of the "souring" effect 

 of green manure as generally handled. The rain water goes rapidly 

 down through the soil and through the layer of vegetable matter and is 

 stored in quantities in the subsoil, but this bed of noncapillary vege- 

 table matter entirely cuts off the rise of this moisture from the subsoil 

 to supply that taken from the surface soil by evaporation and plant 

 growth. There has been a mechanical and not a chemical condition 

 set up in the soil that cuts off the water supply from the plants and 

 causes them to starve for water in spite of a normal rainfall. 



The remedy is that suggested above. See that the vegetable matter 

 is cut fine by your disc harrow before it is plowed under and, when 

 plowing, edge the furrow slice and thus incorporate the vegetable matter 

 with the whole soil stratum and have it uniformly distributed through- 



