The Hay Crop 249 



Fertilizers will prove a great help, but fertilizers do not 

 furnish any humus-making material, and hence it is essen- 

 tial that some feeding be done. Where hay is a profitable 

 crop in the immediate vicinity of a large city, beef or 

 dairy products will also be profitable, and butter making 

 will be found to be clear of the drain on the land that 

 milk seUing is, since it leaves the mineral matters to be 

 returned to the soil through the feeding of the skim 

 milk. 



On a farm so situated the farmer who is to some extent 

 a dairyman, can afford to buy grain to balance up the 

 silage ration, and should have an abundance of straw 

 for bedding and manure making. 



Starting then with a sod to be plowed for com, on 

 which all the manurial accumulation has been spread in 

 the best manner with a manure-spreader, for we assume 

 that no progressive farmer will in this day be without this 

 essential machine for saving labor and getting the best 

 results from his manure, we will turn the sod deeply and 

 plant and cultivate the corn crop shallow and level, and 

 cutting the entire crop from the land for the silo we will 

 have a stubble that can be put into the best condition for 

 the wheat crop by the thorough use of the cutaway har- 

 row, for at that season the deep rebreaking with the plow 

 will be a disadvantage to the wheat crop. But the cuta- 

 way must be used in both directions frequently enough to 

 put the few inches of the surface into the best possible 

 tilth. 



With this wheat we would seed timothy, after having 

 worked into the soil in the preparation or in the driUing 

 of the wheat, about 400 pounds per acre of acid phosphate 



