HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 193 



serve to check the sprouts from the old roots. 

 We fed a lot of that green through the sum- 

 mer, and in October we got about three tons 

 of fine hay to the acre. There's one of the 

 happiest of hay combinations. Sorghum alone 

 by its rank growth makes a heavy draft upon 

 soil nitrogen and so tends to impoverishment ; 

 but if you put two or three pecks of sorghum 

 with four or five of cowpeas, nitrogen is com- 

 ing in faster than it goes out, so your soil is 

 growing better. And when you cut your hay 

 you have something a well balanced ration, 

 the cane supplying the carbohydrates which 

 the pea-vines lack, and the vines supplying the 

 proteids which the cane lacks. You can't 

 beat it. 



The first crop helped that new land no end, 

 and the hay we cut was worth here about $15 

 a ton. For the second year we plowed again 

 across and across, going deeper than before 

 and tearing out wagonloads of roots and small 

 stumps. Our cowpea-sorghum crop was re- 

 peated, but we were able to plant much earlier, 

 as the surface water bothered us very little. 

 And then last fall, when the hay was cut, our 

 wheat was sown after a new breaking and a 

 thorough harrowing and dragging. This 



