MANURING AND FERTILIZING 



Improves the physical condition of the soil. In 

 Itself It adds no plant food, although It may 

 take up, utilize, and leave behind plant food 

 in a more available form for the tree's use. 

 But In addition to these benefits, leguminous 

 crops actually add to the soil plant food In the 

 form of nitrogen which they have the ability 

 to assimilate from the air by means of bacterial 

 organisms on their roots. 



Non-Leguminous Crops. — The most im- 

 portant of the non-leguminous crops are rye, 

 buckwheat, turnips or rape, barley, oats, and 

 millet. The first mentioned are the most com- 

 monly used. Also In order of Importance the 

 following are the usual leguminous cover and 

 green manure crops to be used: clovers, winter 

 vetch, soy beans, alfalfa, cow peas (first In the 

 South). In order to determine the relative ad- 

 visability of the use of these various crops let 

 us now look at some of their characteristics 

 and requirements. 



Rye Is one of the best non-leguminous cover 

 crops, especially In the young orchard, as it 

 does not grow as well In shade as In the open. 

 A particularly strong point about rye Is that 

 it grows rapidly quite late In the fall and starts 

 early In the spring. Starting earlier than most 



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