152 SOUTHERN FIELD CROPS 



corn land of these regions. In these cases (on the richer 

 bottoms) , so long as the yield is satisfactory, and no undue 

 amount of disease appears, it is probably better to violate 

 the usual rules of rotation and to grow corn continuously 

 than to change it to the shallow, dry soils of the hills. 

 However, tracts that must for this reason be cropped an- 

 nually with corn should be carefully supplied with vege- 

 table matter by one of the following methods : (1) Either 

 by sowing cowpeas thickly each summer among the grow- 

 ing corn plants, or else (2) by growing each, winter a crop 

 of crimson clover, bur clover, hairy vetch, or other winter- 

 growing legumes, to be plowed under in April or May as 

 fertilizer for the corn crop of the same year. 



140. A three-year rotation. When possible, corn 

 should enter into the regular farm rotation. In the rota- 

 tions best suited to the average cotton plantation corn 

 usually follows cotton, and is followed by fall-sown oats 

 or by wheat. This position is given to corn, not for its own 

 advantage, but because corn can easily be removed in time 

 for the fall sowing of the small grains, while cotton is not 

 generally removed at so early a date. 



Incidentally, corn grown after cotton gets the advan- 

 tage of the clean and late cultivation given the latter, and 

 this starts the young corn plants promptly into growth. 

 Corn, following cotton on a field comparatively free from 

 the seeds of weeds and grasses, can be produced with less 

 labor than corn after corn. A good three-year rotation 

 is the following : 



First year : cotton ; 



Second year: corn, with cowpeas between the rows; 



Third year: oats or wheat, followed by cowpeas. 



