The Wheat Crop 195 



nitrogen in the soil that will call for a Uberal apphcation 

 of phosphoric acid and potash to balance the plant food 

 ration, since without this there might be such an excess of 

 nitrogen as to cause the straw to be heavy and weak and 

 hence the crop will fall and lodge. Under these conditions 

 we would use for the wheat an apphcation of 400 pounds 

 per acre of acid phosphate and twenty-five pounds of 

 muriate of potash. 



If the wheat is grown in the cotton belt, where the chief 

 money crop is cotton, it will be well to lengthen the rota- 

 tion somewhat, and to put winter oats after the corn, and 

 at once, after these are harvested, to break the land 

 and sow cow peas at rate of one bushel per acre, to be 

 made into hay for stock feeding, and then prepare the 

 pea stubble with the cutaway for wheat. And this crop 

 of wheat will be helped more if the same fertihzer is 

 used on the peas and not directly on the wheat, and the 

 farm will benefit more through the increased crop of 

 forage. Then in the same manner this wheat should be 

 followed by peas for hay, and the peas by crimson clover 

 in the fall to be turned under in spring for the cotton 

 crop, among which at last working the crimson clover is 

 again sown, and all the farm manure spread on it during 

 the winter to be turned for corn again, and the rotation 

 repeated. 



Farming in this way the cotton farmer would need to 

 buy only the cheaper forms of plant food in acid phos- 

 phate and potash, and could at the same cost of a com- 

 plete fertihzer give each of the pea crops a Hberal dressing 

 and then let the peas make the wheat and the cotton, too, 

 and that they will do it well has been shown in the ex- 



