FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 685 



clover make a nice growth on acid soil. Since our correspondent is so 

 far from the railroad, it may be that it would be better for him to 

 experiment with crops tolerant to acid conditions than to buy lime- 

 stone. To furnish nitrogen and humus to enrich his soils, he has his 

 choice between cowpeas, soy beans, hairy vetch and crimson clover. 

 Crimson clover and hairy vetch have the same habits, both being seeded 

 in the late summer. They become established before winter, and make 

 a very heavy growth in April and early May, at which time they may 

 be plowed under for corn. Crimson clover is a very tender plant, and 

 generally winter kills north of southern Illinois. Hairy vetch is quite 

 hardy over the entire corn belt, but, unfortunately, the seed is so high 

 in price and so uncertain in quality that most of our readers who have 

 tried it have become disgusted with the crop. That there are wonderful 

 possibilities in this crop as an enricher of acid soil has been demon- 

 strated by an Indiana farmer who, by sowing it in the late summer and 

 plowing it under the following May, has been able to double his corn 

 crop. It is a good plan to seed vetch with rye, using twenty or thirty 

 pounds of vetch seed per acre, and about three pecks of rye. Vetch 

 may fail the first year it is tried, but the second time it is seeded, it 

 generally grows splendidly. We suspect that there are possibilities in 

 growing vetch seed in the corn belt, although no one seems to have 

 tried it as yet. 



Cowpeas and soy beans are both seeded in June or early July. They 

 may be broadcasted at the rate of six pecks per acre, or drilled in at the 

 rate of three or four pecks. They stand drouth fairly well, and make 

 a good growth of green manure to plow under in the fall or early the 

 next spring. The objection to cowpeas and soy beans on northern soils 

 is that they do not make such a very heavy growth, and, moreover, the 

 price of seed is generally about $3 a bushel. 



We suggest that our Illinois correspondent try a rotation of corn and 

 oats, drilling in a mixture of vetch and rye with a single horse wheat 

 drill in the corn in August, and plowing the rye and vetch mixture 

 under the next May for another crop of corn. In the corn which is to 

 be followed by oats, no vetch and rye should be seeded. After the oats 

 are taken off and the land is disked up, cowpeas or soy beans might 

 be put in. By following a system of this sort it should be possible 

 to keep up the soil fertility. As to whether or not it would be economi- 

 cal can be determined only on experiment. We suspect that it would 

 pay better to buy the limestone so that alfalfa and red clover might be 

 grown. If our correspondent has the time, money and inclination it 

 would be interesting to compare the two systems. Under the one sys- 

 tem lime would be bought and the humus and nitrogen would be fur- 

 nished by red clover or alfalfa. Under the other system no lime would 

 be bought and the humus and nitrogen would be furnished by cowpeas, 

 soy beans or hairy vetch. Under either system it would probably be 

 necessary sooner or later to buy rock phosphate to keep up the phos- 

 phorus supply. Our readers must realize that it is impossible perma- 

 nently to keep up the phosphorus supply except by applying rock phos- 

 phate, acid phosphate, bone meal, or very large quantities of barnyard 

 manure. 



