364 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



has been thus produced. The rotation of cereals with nitrogen-gathering 

 crops, therefore, has been shown to be absolutely essential to the profitable 

 use of commercial fertilizers in any form." This is in perfect accord with 

 all of our experience, for we have found that with the exception of certain 

 high priced crops, like those of the market garden and tobacco, it has never 

 been as profitable to use a complete fertilizer for the direct production of the 

 crop as through the accumulation of nitrogen by means of legumes. 



11. In the use of the legumes as nitrogen collectors, a short rotation is 

 essential, since nitrogen, when it has come into the readily available form 

 of a nitrate, is rapidly lost to the soil. The same Ohio experiments confirm 

 this, for they say: "Thus far in these experiments the surplus nitrogen ac- 

 cumulated by a crop of clover, the roots only being left in the ground, has not 

 been more than sufficient to satisfy the demands of the one crop immediately 

 following the clover. 



12. Hence in wheat growing in the northern section of the winter wheat 

 belt a rotation of three or four years will be found the most profitable. We 

 would suggest the following: Wheat, clover cut for hay and fallowed for 

 wheat again. Clover cut for hay, then pastured and manured for the corn 

 crop the following year and repeat, a four year rotation in which one field of 

 wheat following corn has the benefit of the manure applied to the corn and 

 another the clover lay and the corn also has the clover and manure. In the 

 southern part of the Middle States either adopt a three year rotation of corn, 

 wheat and clover, or, if the oat crop is an important one, make a rotation of 

 corn on clover sod manured, vetch among the corn for a winter cover, oats on 

 the plowed down vetch, cow peas on the oat stubble at once after harvest and 

 cut for hay and land disced for wheat and sown to clover. In the Upper 

 South where the land is adapted to wheat make the following. Corn well 

 manured with home-made manure, winter oats or wheat after the corn, cow 

 peas after harvest cut for hay and land sown at once in crimson clover or 

 vetch, cotton on the plowed down legumes aided by the meal from the previous 

 crop. In all these rotations we would use commercial fertilizers only on the 

 legumes, and on these in a very liberal manner only phosphoric acid and 

 potash. This liberal use of the mineral elements of plant food will result 

 in a larger growth of forage for cattle feeding, and a larger amount of nitro- 

 gen accumulation. The increase in forage will mean an increase of manurial 

 accumulations in the stables and barnyard, and a growing independence of the 

 fertilizer mixer, the building up of the fertility and productiveness of the 

 land and increased profit to the farmer. 



13. Barnyard and stable manure made by feeding animals on which a 

 profit has been secured, is a far cheaper source of fertility than commercial 



