MANURES AND HUMUS IN SOIL. 161 



beans are drilled in drills about 24 inches apart and 

 cultivated carefully till they cover the land, when 

 their shade suppresses weeds. 



To get a money crop out of soy beans and yet 

 have a hot of humus-making material is easy. One 

 does it with hogs, turning them in after the bean 

 crop is mature and letting them harvest the beans. 

 Afterward the stems remaining with many leaves 

 will be plowed down. 



Soy beans respond well to fertilization with phos- 

 phatic fertilizers. The larger grows the soil-build- 

 ing crop, whether of soy beans, cowpeas, crimson 

 clover or anything else, the larger the alfalfa will 

 grow after it. Therefore fertilizer applied to the 

 cover crop is all to the good. 



Crimson Clover (Trifolium incarnatum). One of 

 the most charmingly beautiful clovers is crimson 

 clover, the trifolium of the English farmer. It is 

 an annual clover. Sown in summer it makes a fall 

 and winter growth (if there is any open weather) 

 blooms in May, ripens its seed and dies. It is of 

 no use sown in the spring. It is much used in Eng- 

 land, France and the Middle Atlantic States of 

 America. It is a good forerunner of alfalfa. This 

 plant is remarkably cold-resistant and in suitable 

 soils grows during every warm spell of winter. It 

 enriches soils admirably if it has itself the right 

 bacteria at work on its roots. On some soils where 

 it is new it needs inoculation. Crimson clover is 

 sown in late summer or early fall, usually as a 

 catch crop after corn or garden truck. It makes 



