96 



FORAGE CROPS 



palatable and nutritious when fed to domestic animals under proper 

 conditions. When millet is permitted to mature, it is too coarse 

 and woody to be relished or digested. The sowing is done in May, 

 June, or July according to the beginning of the warm season in 

 the various parts of our country. The amount of seed sown to the 

 acre varies from one to three pecks. Millets, on account of their 

 rapid growth and ability to resist drought, are frequently sown in 

 hot weather for the purpose of subduing and choking out weeds. 



Leguminous Plants. The legumes include a large number of 

 plants and are so called because their seeds grow in pods or legumes. 

 These plants are of great value because they fer- 

 tilize and enrich the soil besides furnishing excel- 

 lent forage crops. They sond their roots deep into 

 the soil and bring up a rich supply of mineral 

 constituents that cannot be reached by ordinary 

 plants. They also take up a great deal of nitrogen 

 from the air, which is added to the soil on the 

 maturity of the plants and the soil is enriched to 

 that extent. The leguminous forage plants in- 

 clude the clovers, alfalfa, the vetches, cowpeas, 

 soy bean, peanut, the velvet bean, and others. 



Nitrifying Bacteria. Leguminous plants con- 

 tain a large amount of proteid and take up free 

 nitrogen through minute organisms which estab- 

 lish themselves in small nodules or tubercles 

 found on the roots of these plants. These 

 tubercles may be round, oval, pear-shaped or 

 very irregular, and may vary in size from six hundredths to 

 three tenths of an inch. The organisms which occupy these 

 tubercles are microscopic plants known as bacteria. Slight 

 differences are found in the bacteria associated with the various 

 kinds of legumes, and in a few cases one form of tubercle bacteria 

 can adapt itself to some other plant as a host. It is thought 

 that in time we may be able to develop these bacteria artificially 

 without the agency of the legumes and apply them to the soil in 

 such a way that it would be enriched with nitrogen through 

 their presence, even when the plants grown on the soil were not 

 leguminous plants or their allied families. The United States 



Root of soy bean, 

 with nodules. 



