324 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



be seen, is a long one, and these benefits are undoubtedly, 

 under the proper conditions, very great. It may be won- 

 dered, then, why the practice is not more general. It might 

 seem that the benefits are sufficiently great to warrant a much 

 more general practice of green-manuring than we find among 

 our farmers ; and yet the indiscriminate adoption of the prac- 

 tice is by no means to be recommended, It has its place ; 

 but the conditions under which it is best to turn under a 

 catch-crop are, I believe, comparatively seldom met with. 



Conditions under which Green-manuring should be 



practised. 



In the majority of instances a crop which has been grown 

 will be worth more to feed in Massachusetts than it is for 

 turning under. A crop standing in the field has a certain 

 value as a means of soil improvement, — a certain manurial 

 value. It has also, in almost all cases, a certain value as 

 food. It may be used as a food either by pasturing it, or 

 cutting and feeding in the barn. In either case, under 

 proper management the excreta of the animals consuming 

 the crop will be worth as manure about three-fourths as much 

 as the entire crop would be worth if incorporated in the soil. 

 If we turn the crop under, then, in the one case, we get its 

 full manurial value. If, on the other hand, we feed it and 

 carefully save and apply the excreta, or if we pasture and so 

 manage that the droppings are evenly distributed, we have 

 the food value and about three-fourths of the manurial value. 

 The sum of these two in the great majority of instances will 

 be greater than the full manurial value. 



There are, of course, conditions under which the crop can- 

 not be profitably fed, either because of the absence of stock 

 necessary to consume it or because of the location of the field. 

 In such cases the turning under of the entire crop may, of 

 course, be wisest. 



There can be no doubt that the latter practice is much more 

 often in place upon light and sandy soils than upon better 

 soils. Upon the light and poor soils legumes, not finding 

 nitrogen in the soil, are forced to take it from the air. Upon 

 the richer soils they would take it from the soil itself and 



