38 HORTICULTURE, FORESTRY, FLORICULTURE 



lose its source of seeding and become a thing of the past. At the very 

 best, a cover crop of weeds is an uncertain thing. 



How to Combine the Advantages of Cover Crops and Cultiva- 

 tion. This is an important question for orchardists. In many fruit 

 sections, this is done by the cultivation of the soil during the summer 

 and seeding down to some cover crop in the late summer or early 

 autumn. The crop may be one that will kill out in winter or one 

 that will live over and be allowed to grow on the land until late 

 spring, when it is turned under. Occasionally it is a good plan to 

 seed an orchard down to clover for a year or two in order to increase 

 the humus in the soil and thus prevent erosion, as for instance in the 

 case of soils on steep hillsides where the humus has become almost 

 exhausted. For this purpose the land should be plowed preferably in 

 late autumn and the clover seed sown in late spring without any 

 nurse crop. 



Examples of Practical Use of Cover Crops in Various Fruit Dis- 

 tricts. (a) Oats. Peach growers of Michigan and apple growers 

 and nurserymen of Minnesota sow oats in their orchards about the 

 middle of August to protect the roots of the trees against severe freez- 

 ing and to prevent the leaves and snow from being blown off. (6) 

 Crimson clover is an excellent cover crop for parts of New York State 

 and south to Alabama. It should be sown in late summer or early 

 autumn in New York not outside of Long Island. Crimson clover 

 is only a summer crop over the larger part of the State, but in Ala- 

 bama it grows all winter, (c) Buckwheat is a good cover crop for 

 steep slopes or other places which it may be desirable to cover in 

 summer. It should be sown in late spring, (d) Vetches may some- 

 times be used to advantage for a cover crop and should be sown in 

 early spring, (e) Such perennial crops as mammoth clover, and 

 even alfalfa, may be used as cover crops if plowed under the second 

 year. They should be sown in orchards, without a nurse crop, in the 

 early spring. The following table shows the number of pounds of 

 seed required per acre to obtain a good stand of the cover crops com- 

 monly used in this country : 



Nitrogen collectors: 



Alfalfa pounds 40 



Hairy vetch do 40 



Cowpeas do 90 



Soy beans do 90 



Velvet beans do 25 



Mammoth clover do 20 



Crimson clover do 20 



Sweet clover . do 15 



Nitrogen consumers: 



Rape pounds 9 



Turnip do 2 



Eye do 30 



Oats bushels 2 



Barley do 1% 



Buckwheat do % 



Corn do % 



(U. S. E. S. B. 178.) 



The question of cropping the orchard is an important one. As a 

 rule, this should never be done, and yet it may often happen that 

 while the trees are young and before they need all the space between 

 them some other crop can be grown on the land to advantage. 

 (U. S. E. S. B. 178.) 



The Orchard as a Pasture. Pasturing the orchard is probably 



