LEGUMINOUS CROPS 133 



disc and harrow throughout the fall never allowing any green 

 leaves to show. Then plow deeply in the late fall. Plant a culti- 

 vated crop the following season and follow the cultivator with a 

 hoeman who looks for every spear of the grass. Or, after thor- 

 oughly preparing the seed bed in the spring give it a heavy seeding 

 of German millet, say, 2 to 2 l /2 pecks of good seed, preferably sown 

 broadcast. Sow the millet late in May. At no time during this 

 process of field preparation should the quack grass be allowed to 

 show green and if possible the ground should never be worked 

 while wet. The drier the ground and hotter the weather the better 

 the killing effect of the cultivation. Any annual forage crop which 

 will give a dense and rapid growth may be substituted for millet 

 though I think it has no equal unless it is fodder corn sown broad- 

 cast." 



THE LEGUMES. 



For a full and valuable account of the cultivated leg- 

 umes I refer the reader to "Forage and Fiber Crops of 

 America" by Hunt. Prof. Thos. Shaw also has an ex- 

 cellent book on clovers, and Prof. H. Carman of the Ken- 

 tucky Experiment Station has an exceedingly valuable 

 descriptive bulletin on legumes (No. 98 ). Within the 

 limits of space assigned to this volume I can give only a 

 very superficial account. 



The leguminosae comprise a vast number of plants. 

 Some are tiny herbs; some are among the largest trees. 

 Among the common ones are the peas, beans, locust trees, 

 clovers, alfalfa, cowpeas, soybeans and vetches. It is a 

 curious thought that all these plants probably came from 

 one stock; the ancestral form of the sweetpea, alfalfa, 

 red clover, and locust trees is one and the same. If one 

 will look closely one will indeed see that flowers of the 

 pea, the bean, the locust tree and even of the clover or al- 

 falfa plant are very much the same. There is no other 



