THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 459 



injurious to the clover. This clover, however, does not start its growth 

 as early as some in the fall and so is not as good for stopping the 

 erosion of the soil from early rains. 



Of the purple vetch there was only a limited amount of seed for 

 planting ; it gave good growth wherever used and seems very promising. 

 The attack of the aphis did not materially injure the growth. 



Both the purple vetch and the Melilotus do some of their best growing 

 after the middle of February. The manager of the Limoneira ranch, 

 who is ever seeking the best thing and the better way, writes as follows 

 of the purple vetch: "We are zealous supporters of Vicia attropur- 

 purea. It has yielded us greater tonnage than any other crop we 

 ever grew in a given length of time. From last year's experience we 

 would favor planting this vetch as early as the last of August or in 

 September, so as to get a good growth before the Aphis comes with the 

 winter months, and also to secure a sufficient amount of organic matter 

 by February 1st when, if conditions permit, plowing should begin. 

 (Our ground is now in better condition than it has been in, even a month 

 later, for some years past. The moisture has held up finely where we 

 plowed early, while later plowings were irrigated three and four weeks 

 ago.) This vetch grows equally well on our diiferent types of soil and 

 from September 1st to February 1st made a growth of six feet in 

 length. On the steeper slopes the early planting forms a protection 

 against early rains." 



STATION EXPERIMENTS. 



For the past five years the station at Riverside has been conducting a 

 series of experiments with various cover crops on contiguous plats of 

 ground, by which it was sought to determine the comparative value of 

 these cover crops, in regard to tonnage, to be incorporated as green 

 manure with the soil ; also as to the comparative enrichment of the soil 

 by each, as shown by the relative percentage of increase of four kinds of 

 crops grown upon these plats, namely: corn, potato, sugar beet and 

 cabbage. I tabulate a part of this report, which will show the great 

 value of legumes over other kinds of cover crops. 



I name first the variety of cover crop, then its tonnage per acre; its 

 yield of corn, and the per cent increase of the four crops during this 

 time. 



TABLE I. 



Showing the value of legumes as compared with other cover crops. 



Variety 



m Corn 



Tonnage (bushels) 



Increase 

 (per cent) 



1. Rye 7.5 I 30 No 



2. Common vetch 13 38 26 



3. Purple vetch | 18.2 55 54 



4. Bur clover i 12 \ 38 27 



5. Sweet clover ! 12.8 i 49 j 06.5 



6. Canada field pea 9 40 49.5 



7. Tangier field pea ; 14 45 65 



8. Fenugreek I 12.3 43 



9. Lentils -i 12 : 46 



33.5 

 29.2 



