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trees assume a sickly appearance; fur- 

 thermore, if clover is worked into the 

 soil by plowing or disking, consider- 

 able expense and work will have to be 

 incurred each year in reseeding. 



If the cover crop is to be grown 

 purely as a soil-builder, vetch is un- 

 questionably the best thing that has 

 been tried in Benton County. If the 

 crop is to be continued year after year, 

 it is allowed to stand until a portion 

 of the seed has matured before being 

 disked or plowed under. In this way 

 the crop reseeds itself each year. Where 

 the crop is heavy it is often necessary 

 to cut it up with a sharp disk before 

 plowing it under. If the water supply 

 is limited, the crop is not worked into 

 the soil until the end of the season. 



During the fore part of the growing 

 season vetch requires considerable 

 water. Early in the summer the vetch 

 ripens, goes down and forms a thick 

 mat that completely covers and shades 

 the surface of the ground. This mate- 

 rially lessens evaporation and de- 

 creases the amount of water necessary 

 for irrigation. We have conservative 

 farmers who claim that no more water 

 is required to produce vetch in this 

 way than to clean cultivate the land. 

 While it takes more water in the spring 

 when growing, it requires much less 

 water during the hot part of the sum- 

 mer, because the crop is ripe and forms 

 a dead mat on the surface of the 

 ground. Vetch is sown during the lat- 

 ter part of summer or early i^all. If a 



reasonably thick stand is desired the 

 first year, 25 to 30 pounds of seed 

 should be sown per acre, and this inoc- 

 ulated. Our experience does not war- 

 rant the sowing of spring vetch. To 

 get rid of vetch plow it under in the 

 spring, before the seeds form. 



If it is desired to raise some hay or 

 utilize the crop for pasture and at the 

 same time build up the soil, alfalfa is 

 better than vetch, because it will add 

 humus and nitrogen to the soil and will 

 produce more and better feed. The 

 alfalfa that is grown in an orchard 

 should not be used for hay unless it 

 is to be fed to livestock and the manure 

 returned to the soil. One of the best 

 ways to handle alfalfa as a green ma- 

 nure and a hay crop at the same lime 

 is to cut the first two crops for feed 

 and cut and disk the next two crops 

 into the ground. This will add nitro- 

 gen and humus to the soil rapidly and 

 at the same time furnish a good supply 

 of hay. This will save considerable 

 expense where hay has to be bought 

 the year around. Alfalfa takes consid- 

 erably more water than vetch. It is 

 also harder to plow up, should it be 

 desired to get rid of it. This last is not 

 a serious objection, however, if it is 

 done in the right way. The essential 

 point in getting rid of alfalfa without 

 difliculty is to plow very shallow just 

 before freezing weather, having the 

 plow absolutely sharp. This will cut 

 the crowns off and leave them near the 

 surface, so that they will freeze during 

 the winter. 



Alfalfa can be sown solid in orchards 

 without injurious results after the trees 

 are four or five years old, providing 

 they have made a good growth up to 

 that time. Otherwise clean cultivation 

 should be practiced a few feet on each 

 side of the trees until they are thrifty 

 and vigorous. 



I would not feel that a discussion of 

 cover crops was complete unless I at 

 least briefly presented the most profit- 

 able method we have found of using 

 them. The practice of pasturing down 

 the cover crops with hogs has been 

 very profitable where it was done prop- 

 erly. There are some who want to 

 carry on only one farm enterprise and 

 seriously object to such a thing as a 

 hog on the farm, but the most of us 

 are farming primarily to make money 

 and we cannot afford to let our likes 

 and dislikes influence our decision in 

 operating the farm. The two questions 

 that arise here are: Will the hops hurt 

 the orchard? and, will they pay? 



Only occasionally hogs will injure 

 matured trees. \Mien I hear a man say 

 that hogs won't hurt trees I know he 

 is drawing his conclusions only from 

 his own experience or very limited 

 observation, and that he is mistaken. 

 When I hear a man say you can't run 

 hogs in an orchard because they will 

 injure the trees, 1 also know he is 

 drawing his conclusion from very ex- 

 ceptional cases. If time would permit, 

 1 could give you the results of a farm- 

 to-farm study on this problem in the 

 Yakima and Columbia River valleys. 

 The results, if tabulated, would show 

 in about the following proportions: I 



