170 



cutting or shredding machine, as at the North, where both systems are practiced 

 ■with much success. * * * By feeding the fodder only a very small waste of fer- 

 tilizing constituents need be incurred, as the manure on a well-regulated farm 

 should always be returned to the land. Some further statistics of this crop will be 

 found under the discussion of cow-pea vines. 



Corn-fodder silage. — Results of analyses of three samples, one from 

 each of the experiment farms of the station, are reported. 



Coic-peas, oats, and corn. — 



The cow-pea seems especially adapted to meet the wants of our Southern farmers. 

 Its extensive and deep root system enables it to withstand the long dry spells com- 

 mon to our climate, and also to gather nourishment from soils on which shallow- 

 growing crops would starve. It responds readily to fertilizers, and on fair soils will 

 produce as large a yield of nutritive matter as almost any forage crop we can grow. 

 It makes such a rapid growth that two crops can be grown in a season. The growth 

 is so luxuriant that all noxious weeds are choked oat. The most serious objections 

 urged against this crop are its great bulk and the difficulty of curing it. It is not, 

 however, more difficult to cure than clover, and, properly managed, makes an excel- 

 lent long forage. 



The tabulated data include the composition and fertilizing constitu- 

 ents of cow-pea-vine hay ; fertilizing constituents in cow-pea vines, roots, 

 and stubble; and for cow-pea vines, oats, and corn, average composi- 

 tion and yield of crude nutrients in the whole and parts of the plants ; 

 yield of digestible matter in the whole crop; yield of fertilizing constit- 

 uents in the whole and parts of the crop. The following conclusions 

 were drawn from these analyses : 



(1) For the production of a nitrogenous food, in the shape of a forage crop, the 

 cow-pea vines are almost without a rival. 



(2) Although no digestioa experiments have as yet been made with it, there is 

 every reason to believe that this crop is equally as digestible as leguminous plants 

 in general. 



(3) On an acre of ordinary land this crop will probably produce more digestible 

 food than either oats or corn. 



(4) The manure resulting from feeding this crop is of the highest value, and should 

 be carefully preserved aud returned to the land. 



(5) As the cow-pea obtains a part of its nitrogen from the atmosphere, and a part, 

 together with some of its phosphoric acid and iiotash, from the subsoil, the large 

 amount of these constituents left in its roots and stubble and dead leaves dropped 

 by the plant tend to enrich instead of impoverish the soil. In other words, its 

 power of collecting aud storing fertilizing materials from sources beyond the reach 

 of the cereals makes this cow-pea a valuable remedial crop. In addition to all this, 

 it is more than probable that the shade produced by the luxuriant growth of this 

 crop during the summer months, when nitrification is most active, greatly promotes 

 the formation aud storage of nitrates in the soil. 



Cotc-peas, soja beans, and soja-bean vines. — The tabulated data include 

 the composition of cow-peas and soja beans (seeds), fertilizing constitu- 

 ents in cow-peas, and the composition and fertilizing constituents of soja- 

 bean vines and straw. 



South Dakota Station, Bulletin No. 18, March, 1890 (pp. 8). 



Cut-worms, I. H. Orcutt, M. D., and J. M. Aldrich, B. S. (pp. 

 31-36). — Brief notes on cut-worms, suggestions as to means for their 



