COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY 117 



do it every year without a failure, and yet we have had farmers write that 

 their hay molded. I suppose it requires some judgment and experience, 

 but I have tried to give the method that has been a success with me, and 

 can see no reason why it should not be a success anywhere. If rain falls on 

 the hay in the field, spread the windrows and dry off well before housing. 

 Rain will do little damage, far less than it would to clover hay, but it will 

 darken it and should be avoided if possible. Once catch on to the right way 

 and you will have no difficulty in making the finest hay in the world. 

 Farming for cotton without the cow pea, the clover of the South, will always, 

 on our worn uplands, be a losing business. 



RESTING THE LAND. 



There has long been a practice in the cotton country of "resting" the 

 land, by allowing it to grow up in weeds and grass each alternate year. 

 Feeling that constant annual cropping in cotton was bad, the farmers came to 

 the conclusion that the soil was "tired," and needed a rest. Of course the 

 accumulation of organic matter through the idle season added a little to 

 the land, and the resting was better than the constant culture without 

 systematic rotation. But intelligent farmers all over the South are rapidly 

 learning that the best way to rest land is to keep it at work growing some- 

 thing of value between the sale crops; something that will help recuperate 

 the land better than a crop of weeds, and the wise farmer now keeps all land, 

 vacant of crops in Summer, covered with peas. 



ANOTHER COTTON ROTATION. 



We have given what we consider the best rotation for a large part of the 

 coast country of the South. But there is a large section of the upland red 

 clay country where cotton is still the money crop, and where wheat flourishes 

 well. There the same three year rotation can be made a success by putting 

 wheat in the place of winter oats. But where both crops are wanted, the 

 rotation can be extended to four years and another crop of pea hay gotten 

 in. In this case the peas after oats will be followed by wheat, and this again 

 by peas fertilized with potash and acid phosphate, preparatory to the crop 

 of cotton. One of the chief ideas in a rotation is to keep the land covered 

 as much as possible by growing crops. Our Southern soils have lost 

 fertility as much by lying bare in the winter as by the summer cropping. 

 Never let the land lie all winter without some green cover crop. This will 

 not only add humus-making material to the soil, but it has been found that 



