60 The Bulletin. 



ROTATION OF CROPS. 



Br N. A.^LAYTON, of Bladen County. 



We will take a field on your farm on which corn is now growing, with 

 field peas sown in the middles. After you have gathered the corn, cut the 

 stalks, break the land thoroughly so as to turn all the vegetable matter 

 under; then sow it to oats, putting two bushels of Red Rust or Appier oats 

 to the acre. Put them in with a drill or harrow them in with a disc harrow 

 by going over the ground both ways. If the surface is not in good tilth 

 and smooth, go over it again with a smoothing harrow or drag. You can 

 sow vetch with your oats and greatly increase the amount of hay. If wanted 

 for hay, cut the oats when they are in the dough state and the vetch in 

 bloom. Vetch, being a legume, will take nitrogen from the air and deposit 

 it in the soil and in that way improve the land. 



If you use any fertilizer at time of planting, use nothing but muriate of 

 potash and acid phosphate, 14 per cent or 16 per cent. Mix as follows: 

 200 pounds of acid phosphate and 25 pounds of muriate of potash for one 

 acre. If your land is sandy, use more potash ; if heavy clay, use less. Sow 

 it broadcast when you sow the oats. For the southeastern part of the State 

 sow your oats from the first of October to the first of December. 



About the last of March or first of April sow from 75 to 100 pounds 

 of nitrate of soda broadcast on your oats; do this when the oats are not 

 wet with dew or rain. As soon as you harvest your oats sow the land 

 to field peas to be cut for hay. When you have harvested the hay and 

 broken the land thoroughly about eight inches deep, sow to rye. 



About the first of March prepare this land for cotton by laying off the 

 rows four feet apart; put 400 to 600 pounds of high-grade fertilizer (not 

 lower than 8-3-3) to the acre and bed it out; let stand until about the 

 first of April, then rebed or list by throwing two furrows back, and plant 

 on that list or ridge. As soon as planted, break out the balk between the 

 rows with a cotton plow or sweep. After the first rain go over the cotton 

 with a weeder crosswise or run round it with a side harrow. Put to stand 

 as soon as danger from insect pests and disease to young plants is past, then 

 cultivate shallow and often. 



After the first or second picking of cotton sow crimson clover or winter 

 vetch in middles of cotton rows, and run through middles with a light 

 harrow to cover seed; sow from 12 to 15 pounds of crimson clover to the 

 acre and from 18 to 20 pounds of vetch. Sow when there is a good season 

 in the land to insure a good stand. I would advise you to get soil from 

 where crimson clover has been grown successfully and sow in your cotton 

 middles to insure a good growth of clover, and get soil from where vetch has 

 been grown to inoculate the soil for your vetch. 



You will follow cotton with corn, which will complete the three-year rota- 

 tion. 



Following is a summary of the foregoing plan of rotation : 



1. You get more humus in your soil. 



2. You get larger crops. 



3. You can combat insect pests of corn and cotton more effectually. 



4. You will grow more home supplies — the only way to ever become in- 

 dependent farming. 



5. You will keep a cover crop on your land all the year, especially in 

 winter, and keep the land from leaching so badly from winter rains. 



6. You will have green pasture for your pigs and cattle in early spring 

 that otherwise you might not have. 



7. You will keep your land from washing into gullies and build it up for 

 future generations. 



8. Do not forget that this is the plan to restore the humus that has been 

 burned out of your land for years, leaving it and you poorer all the time. 



