254 SEEDING AND PLANTING 



sowing buckwheat in early summer after the nursery stock has 

 been removed. A heavy dressing of stable manure is applied 

 shortly before the buckwheat matures and the whole plowed 

 under. The nursery beds are made the following spring. If 

 the buckwheat is allowed to mature, a volunteer crop comes up 

 the following spring in the seedbeds and transplant beds, which 

 entails considerable expense for removal. 



Cowpeas and other varieties of peas and beans do best on soils 

 rich in lime. 1 They make an indifferent growth and add but little 

 to soil fertility when grown on exhausted soils poor in lime. Such 

 soils should be enriched by the application of fertilizers, particu- 

 larly lime, before the soiling crop is grown. The yellow lupine 

 does much better than peas and beans on soils poor in lime, but 

 when used on exhausted soils the area should be manured with 

 Thomas slag or some other fertilizer with like properties. 



When leguminous soiling crops are grown twice in succession on 

 poor soils, there is a very large increase in their fertilizing value 

 the second year, due to the greater abundance of tubercles on the 

 roots and the resulting increase in available nitrogen in the soil. 

 If the root tubercles fail to develop satisfactorily on the roots of 

 the soiling crop, the soil should be inoculated. This can be done 

 by mixing earth from fields where they have developed abundantly 

 with the seed before sowing, or by scattering inoculated soil over 

 the sown field. 



If the soil is allowed to become exhausted, there is always great 

 difficulty and considerable expense involved in improving its con- 

 dition by the use of soiling crops. It is usually advantageous to 

 alternate nursery crops with ordinary field crops whenever suffi- 

 cient land is available. This is the ordinary practice in many 

 commercial nurseries. A field crop, such as potatoes or corn, is 

 grown the first year after fertilizing with a heavy dressing of stable 

 manure or other suitable fertilizer. Nursery crops are then grown 

 for two or three years. Clover, alfalfa, and other perennial legumes 

 may be grown for one or more years followed by a cultivated field 

 crop and later by nursery crops. Nursery crops should always be 

 preceded by cultivated field crops, such as potatoes and corn, in this 

 system of rotation. Otherwise, the ground will be left in foul con- 

 dition and entirely unsuited for nursery purposes. 



1 Mayr, Heinrich: Waldbau auf naturgesetzlicher Grundlage. S. 410. 

 Berlin, 1909. 



