270 FIELD CROPS 



may then be utilized as pasture for a year or two before it 

 is again broken up for corn, or corn may immediately follow. 

 Where winter wheat is an important crop, it may imme- 

 diately follow the breaking up of a meadow and in turn be 

 followed by corn. In this case, the land is again seeded to 

 grass, with a second wheat crop following the corn. A slightly 

 different arrangement of this rotation is corn, wheat, 

 wheat, grass. If both wheat and oats are grown, the rotation 

 may be corn, oats, corn, wheat, grass, or the order of the 

 wheat and oats crops may be reversed,- though wheat is the 

 better nurse crop. In IVIaine and some of the other impor- 

 tant potato-growing sections, the common rotation is pota- 

 toes, oats, hay. This hay crop is usually clover. (See Sec- 

 tion 456). In the South and West, perennial hay crops 

 other than alfalfa are so seldom grown that definite rota- 

 tions have not been devised. 



LABORATORY AND FIELD EXERCISES 



Samples of seed of the common forage grasses should be obtained 

 and examined for purity and germination. As soon as these seeds 

 become familiar, mixtures containing two, .three, or more of them 

 may be separated into their component parts. At this time, all that 

 need be done would be to separate the weed seeds, chaff, etc., from 

 the good seed without any attempt to identify the weeds. Later, the 

 different weed seeds might be identified. Several laboratory periods 

 may well be devoted to this work. The student should also familiarize 

 himself with the common grasses, clovers, and weeds growing in 

 meadows in the neighborhood. 



REFERENCES 



Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, Vol. II, Bailey 

 Grasses of North America, Beal. 

 Forage and Fiber Crops in America, Hunt. 

 Productive Farm Crops, Montgomery. 

 Forage Crops, and Their Culture, Piper. 

 Grasses and How to Grow Them, Shaw. 

 Farm Grasses of the United States, Spillman. 

 Meadows and Pastures, Wing. 



