The Bulletin. 27 



III picking off peanuts we slioiild ho very careful to piek out, all llie sticks and 

 trash us far as possible, so as to liave fjood stock and then demand tlie best price. 

 Last year the market for machine-picked goods was practically ruined by care- 

 lessness on the part of some farmers at picking time. In those cotton sections 

 which went into peanut culture for the first time last year, great quantities were 

 raised, and at a small cost per acre. They had them picked by some inferior 

 machine which cracked a large per cent of the hulls. 



CROP EOTATION. 



By TAIT butler. 



The intelligent and systematic rotation of crops has received too little attention 

 in this State. A rotation too frequently practiced is to cultivate a field in some 

 useful crop one or more years and then let it "lie out' and grow a crop of 

 weeds for a year. 



This primitive method of crop rotation may have something to recommend it, 

 but its objectionable features far outweigh any advantages it may possess. To 

 discredit this sort of a system of crop rotation it is only necessary to state a 

 well-established fact, namely, that under a proper system of farming, land will 

 improve in productive capacity and grow some useful crop each year. 



That the working out of the best system of crop rotation for his lands is one 

 of the most important subjects upon which the farmer can put much careful 

 thought is shown by the foUovdng enumeration of some of the benefits resulting 

 from intelligent crop rotation: 



1. Crop rotation means diversification with the following resulting benefits: 

 (a) A complete failure and the loss of an entire season's work is rendered 



less likely to occur because it is rare that all crops fail the same year. 



(6) It enables the farmer to supply food for his family and feed his live- 

 stock and thereby lessen the cost of running the farm. 



2. Crop rotation makes it possible to utilize labor to the best advantage by 

 giving it constant employment, thus serving as a partial solution of the labor 

 problem, now so troublesome to the one-crop farmer. 



3. Different crops having different root systems feed to a greater or less 

 extent on different portions or strata of the s-oil. For instance, cowpeas, red 

 clover and alfalfa send their roots down deep into the subsoil and bring up 

 mineral plant foods — phosphorus and potassium — of which they need compara- 

 tively large quantities, to be put into the top-soil when turned under or when fed 

 to live-stock and the stable manure returned to the land. 



Corn, again, sends its roots more deeply than wheat and oats, and therefore, 

 to a certain extent, obtains its food from different portions of the soil. 



]\Ioreover, deep-rooted plants when grown on the land pierce innumerable 

 holes in the subsoil and thereby serve as an excellent and cheap method of 

 subsoiling. 



4. Different crops take different proportions and quantities of the plant foods, 

 nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, from the soil for their use while growing. 

 For instance, clover and potatoes take more potassium than oats, Avhile oats 

 take more than wheat or corn. Clover also takes more phosphorus than wheat. 

 Wheat, corn, and oats take all their nitrooen from the soil ; whereas the legumes, 

 although rieiier in this element, take it chiefly from the air. 



The importance of avoiding the removal of proportionally larger quantities 

 of one of these plant foods than of the others becomes apparent when it is 

 realized that no soil is richer or more productive than indicated by the available 

 supply of the one existing in the smallest quantity. In other words, it matters 

 not how greit a supply there may be of any two, if the other is deficient a 

 maximvmi crop is impossible. 



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