490 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



tion. As previously stated, a crop rotation should be so arranged 

 that it will produce the largest amount of human food that can be 

 produced in the individual soils and under prevailing climatic con 

 ditions and under the management of each individual farmer, whether 

 some phase of the livestock or semi-livestock and grain farming opera- 

 tion be followed or grain and hay forming or seed production which 

 will, in the near future become a necessity in this State, or any other 

 phase of agriculture or horticulture, and, in addition, improve the 

 fertility of the soil. These are not easy things to do but can be 

 done. 



The livestock industry should, in a much larger way, be the prevail- 

 ing agricultural industry of the State, and in order to make it more at- 

 tractive financially, crops must be produced on the farm to feed 

 the animals to get away from paying profits coming and going, and 

 to do this, rotations established by means of which the largest amount 

 of a high feeding value roughage and grain foods can be produced. A 

 rotation for the southern part of the State which will furnish a large 

 amount of a high feeding value roughage and at the same time im- 

 prove the soil, can be arranged by seeding winter rye in the corn 

 stubble in the fall of the year, and in the spring, as soon as the ground 

 is sufficiently dry to run a weeder or a spike-tooth harrow over it, so 

 with the rye equal quantities of red and mammoth clovers, the rye 

 cut for hay or silage when it is heading, which, in the southern part 

 of the State, will be early in May; allow the clover to grow until it 

 is well headed, which will be sometime in July or August, cut for 

 hay and allow the second crop to remain on the field. In this way two 

 crops of high feeding value hay can be produced and one soil im- 

 proving crop, all in one season. The following spring this clover 

 sod is plowed doAvn and the land prepared and planted with corn and 

 the corn field of the previous year which had been sown with rye, 

 used for the hay field, and in this way a farm can be divided into two 

 fields, one for hay and the other for corn, and with the right use of 

 the manure, the soil improved continuously. 



An effort has been made to start this kind of work in a few sections 

 of the State because of soil and climatic conditions being especially 

 favorable; but a rotation which is more attractive to me than the 

 above outline is now being practiced on a 300 acre farm by Martin 

 Cope's son, Lancaster county. These people raise sweet corn which 

 they dry and sell as their money crop. The husks and cobs are cut 

 up and fed to cattle, and the corn stalks which, as all corn stalks do 

 when the ears are plucked at the time they are in the best condition 

 for drying, accumulate sugar in a few weeks until they contain as 

 much as 12 to 14 per cent., when they are cut and either siloed or 

 tied up in bundles and carefully dried and fed to cattle, furnishing 

 approximately as rich a carbo-hydrate food as an ordinary corn crop. 

 At the last cultivation of this corn, red and alsike clovers, alfalfa 

 and timothy are sown with the corn, and the following year anywhere 

 from 2 to 4 crops of hay are cut off this land; the first crop mixed 

 hay made up of timothy, red and alsike clovers while the second and 

 third crops are largely of alfalfa. These rotations furnish a large 

 amount of roughage and corn but not a sufficient amount of high 

 feeding value protein and grains, and therefore either part of the sod 

 field must be planted in the southern section of the State with soy 



