OATS AS A NURSE CROP 



187 



crop, a common rotation consists of one crop each of po- 

 tatoes, oats, and clover. In the South, a good rotation 

 which includes winter oats and the two most important 

 crops of the Southern states, corn and cotton, is as follows: 

 First year, cotton; second 

 year, corn, with cowpeas 

 sown in the corn; third 

 year, winter oats sown 

 after the corn is removed, 

 and followed with cow- 

 peas to be cut for hay. 

 All these rotations in- 

 clude a leguminous crop 

 to add nitrogen to the soil . 

 In the grain-growing sec- 

 tions of Minnesota and 

 the Dakotas, where no 

 regular rotation is prac- 

 ticed, oats usuall}^ follow 

 wheat. Better yields are 

 obtained where oats fol- 

 low wheat than the re- 

 verse in a rotation which 

 includes both crops; that 

 is, that corn, wheat, oats, 

 is a better sequence than 

 corn, oats, wheat. 



229. Use as a Nurse 

 Crop. Oats are largely 



used as a nurse crop. The practice of seeding to grass and 

 clover with oats is a very common one. While this method 

 of attempting to establish a meadow or pasture is so often 

 used, it is not always successful. As oats draw heavily on the 

 soil moisture and also shade the ground closely, barley and 

 wheat, which take less moisture from the soil and make less 



Figure 74. — Oat smut; normal head at the 

 left, smutted head on the right. 



