APPLES 



249 



Peas (pisum sativum) 153 



Poppy 87 



Potatoes 119 



Rape 154 



Rice 39 



Rve : 87 



Seradella : 128 



Sojy bean 297 



Sugar cane 518 



Sorghum (sorghum saccharatum) 446 



Sugar beet (beet-root) 95 



Tobacco 127 



Vetch ( visia sativa) 149 



Wheat Ill 



Co^er Crops as Adapted to Missouri 

 Soils 



Cover crops are highly essential to the 

 present success of the orchard, but espec- 

 ially to its future success — the lack of it 

 may explain failure. 



The more we learn of cover crops the 

 more we appreciate their importance. We 

 have had more or less experience in our 

 plants in Missouri and other states. We 

 have observed the cover crops used in 

 the peach orchards of Georgia and other 

 southern states, of the Lake Shore country 

 of New York, of Michigan, Ohio. Mary- 

 land. Delaware, etc., and throughout our 

 own state and particularly the cover crops 

 — and too often the lack of them — in the 

 West and Northwest. We often hear the 

 orchardists explain that we don't get the 

 crops of the old times when this was a 

 virgin country. To repeat such crops 

 one essential is to put the soil in as near 

 the fertile condition it was following the 

 removal of the forests. The mineral ele- 

 ments of the soil remain but the humus 

 has been "burned out." Too many or- 

 chards are starving, actually starving — 

 and especially is this true of our Ozark 

 regions. 



We have heard the advocation of weeds 

 as a cover crop. Perchance weeds may 

 be better than nothing, but is that good, 

 up-to-date teaching? 



The average soil on chemical analysis 

 shows a fair to a large amount of potash, 

 phosphate and other necessary elements. 

 It is not a question of buying a carload 

 of fertilizer and wondering if it will pay. 

 Commercial fertilizer may pay and often 

 does: and it is sometimes necessary when 

 the soil has been worn out but where 



soil contains the necessary minerals, and 

 the air the necessary nitrogen, the ques- 

 tion should be only one of making use 

 of what you already have, by putting it 

 into an available form, and not of buying 

 a few tons of fertilizer. The nitrogen 

 will be supplied from the atmosphere by 

 the leguminous crops. The organic mat- 

 ter which is also added by these legumi- 

 nous crops tends to make the mineral of 

 the soil more available, and with proper 

 management most soils will furnish all 

 the necessary potash, etc. A little green 

 manure should be added every year, 

 which will increase the nitrogen. This 

 is the cheapest method as it can be done 

 by means of cover and catch crops at the 

 end of the growing season when other 

 crops have been removed. 



Where any cover crop or manure is 

 turned under, it forms humus, which 

 makes the soil darker, and by test it 

 has been shown that a dark soil is some 

 degi'ees warmer than the same soil when 

 lighter in color, when under the same con- 

 ditions. 



Humus in the soil makes it act like a 

 sponge. It makes the soil more porous 

 and able to hold more water and retain 

 it longer. It makes a stiff clay soil of 

 lighter tilth by separating and loosening 

 the soil particles rendering cultivation 

 easier. 



There are a number of bacteria work- 

 ing in the soil. They must all have food, 

 and the beneficial ones are dependent, 

 more or less, on humus and the decaying 

 organic matter from which it is formed. 

 When these bacteria work, or "digest" 

 the humus, they set free carbon dioxide. 

 The carbon dioxide is a gas which is 



