138 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



FARMING FOR HAY. 



But farming for hay does not mean running the land in meadow till 

 it will hardly produce any hay worthy the name. A moderately short rota- 

 tion is as good for the hay crop as for any other, and the growing of a legume 

 crop is just as important as in a rotation for grain or cotton. Whatever 

 the crop, the rotation should be planned so as to give that crop the best oppor- 

 tunity in the rotation. Hence, in a rotation for grass, the grass should come 

 in when the soil is best supplied with the nitrogen accumulated by the legume 

 crop. In the Upper South, this legume crop should be the cow pea, and the 

 best crop to seed down to clover and grass will be the winter oats crop, follow- 

 ing corn among which the peas have been sown. 



The corn will have had all the manure accumulation possible on the 

 farm, and the oats will get some benefit from this and more from the peas, 

 and hence will need a good dressing of acid phosphate and potash as much 

 for the clover and grass as for the oats. Seed to clover and grass with the 

 oats in the fall, mow the oats stubble after the rag weeds start in the sum- 

 mer, and the following spring give the clover and grass a dressing of freshly 

 water-slaked lime at rate of 20 bushels per acre. Mow two seasons, and 

 the second season in the early spring give a top dressing of nitrate of soda 

 and acid phosphate, 50 pounds of the first and 200 of the last per acre. In 

 the South, orchard grass and tall meadow oat grass should take the place of 

 timothy, which does not thrive well here. After the first cutting of hay the 

 second year plow the sod and sow in peas again. Cut these peas for hay to 

 feed on the farm, and during the winter get all the manure out on the stubble 

 for the corn crop the following year. Wheat may, of course, take the place 

 of the winter oats where more profitable. This is only adapted to the upper 

 country of the South and not to the cotton belt, where hay making from 

 grass can hardly be made a profitable part of the farm rotation, and where 

 the legumes will be of more value on the arable lands than meadow grasses. 



But in the North, and near the large cities, where hay from timothy 

 grass is always in demand at fair prices, and where the farmer will haul 

 his own hay to market, he can always haul home the manurial value of the hay 

 either in the city manure, or fertilizers, at a considerable profit in the trans- 

 action. There, a four or five year rotation, with corn, wheat, clover and tim- 

 othy will usually be the best. Of course he will keep some stock, but he will 

 _make the best use of the commercial fertilizers in the production of his hay. 

 Even with the best of management it will be found at times that it will pay 

 the hay farmer to buy some nitrogen, in the form of nitrate of soda, for a 

 spring dressing, and it will usually be found that the most profitable use he 



