116 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



cotton on a different soil, and to give to farmers the proportions in which 

 they should mix their fertilizers to make a complete cotton fertilizer is pure 

 quackery, and should not be indulged in by men engaged in scientific investi- 

 gation. The methods of culture need more improvement than the fertiliza- 

 tion of the crop, for these are the same they were a hundred years ago, and 

 the everlasting fertilizer investigations at the Stations are only keeping up 

 the old practices. The Southern cotton grower needs to be taught more 

 about economical methods in farming than he does about mere application 

 of fertilizers, and he needs to be taught the most economical, and at the same 

 time most liberal, way to use these fertilizers, in the building up of his soil 

 rather than in the squeezing out of a little more sale crop. 



CURING THE PEA VINE HAY. 



In farming for cotton in this way, the pea vine hay is an important item. 

 There has long been a notion that the vines are hard to cure. We have 

 proved year after year that there is no hay more easily cured, and none 

 better for any stock kept on the farm, from the pig to the horse. The 

 methods in common use heretofore in the South have usually resulted in the 

 loss of the leaves, the best part of the hay, and in the production of a mass of 

 hard sticks, instead of the hay that can be made. We have time and again 

 given our method of managing the hay crop. It is hard to give directions 

 that will fit all conditions of the plant, and the weather. Peas that have 

 grown rankly on fertile soil will make great, thick stems that are more slow 

 to cure, and in such case the sowing should be made thicker so that the 

 stems will not get so stout. Ordinarily one bushel of seed per acre is enough, 

 but on strong land, where they are apt to grow too rank, the seeding of one 

 and a half bushels per acre will make a finer hay. 



When the first pods are turning yellow, but none dry, cut the hay with a 

 mower with the track marker off. If the weather is bright and warm, let 

 them lie for 24 hours and then rake into windrows. Next day turn the wind- 

 rows in the morning and dry them off. If the weather is still hot, the hay 

 may get dry enough to haul in that afternoon. The test as to its dryness 

 is to take a handful and give it a hard twist. If you can see no sap run 

 to the twist it will do to go in the barn, provided there is no external moisture 

 on it. Store in as large a mass as possible, and the tighter the barn the 

 better, but it will cure in a rather open barn. While curing in the barn do 

 not disturb it on any account, as you will cause it to mold if you let the air 

 into it while hot. Let it strictly alone and it will cure all right, will be per- 

 fectly green in color and sweet for the stock. Now this is no theory, for we 



