62 SOILING CROPS AND THE SILO. 



and underlaid with clay that is open in character 

 rather than retentive. But some of the non-saccha- 

 rine sorghums will produce fairly good crops when 

 both the soil and subsoil are sandy. Notably is this 

 true of Kaffir corn. The sandy soils of the Rocky 

 mountain valleys have high adaptation for the non- 

 saccharine sorghums, and the same is true of 

 much of the land in the southern and south- 

 western states. 



Place in the Rotation. The non-saccharine 

 sorghums consume considerable quantities of nitro- 

 gen while making their growth, hence the aim should 

 be to grow them after nitrogen-gathering crops. 

 Since they will grow better on soils possessed of a 

 fair quantity of humus, the effort should be made to 

 grow them as far as can be done where green 

 manures have been buried, and within a reasonably 

 recent period. They can therefore with much pro- 

 priety be made to come after crimson clover, the 

 cowpea, the soy bean, the common vetch, the sand 

 vetch and the velvet bean, even though these crops 

 should be harvested. They should also be grown 

 after such crops as winter rye or rape plowed under, 

 and on overturned sod when the conditions may 

 admit of so doing. But they may of course be given 

 almost any place in the rotation when a due regard 

 is had to the fertility of the soil. 



Cultivation is also usually given to these crops 

 during the growing period, hence they may be 

 classed as cleaning crops. This means that they 

 ought to be followed by grain crops where these can 

 be successfully grown, and grass seeds should be 

 sown on the grain crops. But in some sections 



