146 CROP ROTATIONS 



subject to scab and similar diseases which live over in the soil. 

 For these the best remedy is rotation. The use of short season 

 crops, called catch crops, grown between the seasons of the main 

 crops, may often be used in market gardening as well as in the 

 home garden. Whether these catch crops be used for green 

 manure or not, some benefit will arise from their use. The greatest 

 benefit, however, usually comes from plowing them under as 

 green manure. 



Succession cropping may be practiced in market gardening by 

 having the rows of one crop far enough apart to start a second 

 crop between the rows before the first is removed. This plan, 

 known as succession cropping, may be helpful to the soil, or much 

 less injurious than the growth of a single crop. For example, if 

 sweet corn is grown with the rows wide enough, start peanuts 

 in alternate rows with the corn. Nitrogen will be gathered from 

 the air by the peanut plants. 



Companion cropping is only slightly different from succession 

 cropping, and has the same advantages. Examples of these are 

 the growth of garden peas with early spinach or either of these 

 with lettuce. 



Acres in the Rotation. It is often found that the number of 

 acres used for a given crop may not suit the number of acres to be 

 used for the crop which is to follow on the same field. For example, 

 in the first four-year rotation here described the owner used the 

 same number of acres for each of the four crops or purposes. If 

 another farmer wished to adopt the same plan he might prefer to 

 have more corn than oats. In any such case the area for a given 

 crop may be reduced by using a part of the field for a subsidiary 

 crop. Thus the size of the field devoted to oats in that case could 

 be reduced by using a part of it for potatoes. This could be done 

 systematically, and if planned in advance would cause no variation 

 in the rotation system. 



Market Fluctuations. It frequently happens that the price 

 of a market crop is very low for a year or two, and many farmers 

 change their system and stop growing the crop. This may result 

 in the price being very high immediately. Then the pendulum 

 swings back and all farmers raise more of that crop because the 

 price was high last year. This condition is due to a desire on the 

 part of many farmers to speculate on the market conditions. It 

 usually results disastrously. A better plan is to adopt a definite 

 rotation system and follow it in spite of slight annual variations 

 in price. 



