92 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



enables it to smother out all the weeds and produce in a very 

 short time a large amount of vegetable matter to plow under, 

 and also the fact that it is tender and succulent, and can be 

 easily plowed under and will decay rapidly in the soil. 



Another crop which, I think, would be found profitable for 

 this purpose, is corn. I have seldom known it to be plowed 

 under, but in the few experiments that have come to my notice 

 the result was highly satisfactory. In 1878 a neighbor, finding 

 that his clover had failed, plowed up a piece of wheat-stubble, 

 and with the force feed wheat-drill sowed corn at the rate of 

 three bushels to the acre. This was about the first of August, 

 and before frost the corn had attained a height of several feet, 

 and was showing the tassels. As soon as the frost killed it it 

 was plowed under, and the next spring the entire field was 

 planted to corn. The growth of corn on the part where this 

 crop had been plowed under was so marked that it could be 

 seen to a row. 



I think it important, when green crops are plowed under 

 early in the season, and we expect to seed with some other crop, 

 that we should follow the plow at once with the roller or har- 

 row, or both, so as to compact the soil and bring it in close 

 contact with the green plants; but, when we plow under a 

 green crop late in the fall, and leave the land for corn, this 

 should be omitted, and the land left as loose and uneven as 

 possible. 



Every year of experience on the farm deepens my conviction 

 that through green manuring will be found the cheapest and best 

 method of both maintaining and restoring fertility, and that the 

 wise farmer of the future will use his manure more with refer- 

 ence to what it will produce to feed the land than to its imme- 

 diate returns in grain. With less land under cultivation, more 

 stock kept to consume the grass, all the manure saved*and intel- 

 ligently applied, and the land kept always at work producing a 

 crop to be returned to the soil, our farms will increase in produc- 

 tiveness, and we shall solve the problem of profitable farming. 



