first frost, the beans may be gathered, crushed and marketed as velvet bean 

 meal, but it is more profitable to pasture the field with cattle and hogs. 



Velvet beans, in connection with live-stock raising, give an increased value 

 to the thinner soils of the State, but the intrinsic value of these soils, because 

 of the productivity and value of certain crops produced upon them, is only 

 beginning to be appreciated. 



Oats 



Upon the Bluff Lands of northeastern Louisiana and upon the Alluvial and 

 Uplands of the northern part of the State, oats yield a valuable crop. This crop 

 is of great agricultural value for winter grazing, to be utilized later either for 

 hay or for grain. Oats and hairy vetch, or oats and lespedeza are sometimes 

 sown together with profit. They can be grazed during the winter and produce 

 valuable hay when cut successively in the spring and summer. 



Harvesting Peanuts 



Peanuts 



Peanuts can be grown very successfully in Louisiana and utilized in various 

 ways. They can be fed to the live stock on the farm with great profit, either 

 to the farm work stock, milk cows, fattening beeves, and especially to hogs, 

 which can be turned in the field and allowed to do their own harvesting. The 

 entire plant, that is the top and nuts, form practically a balanced and highly 

 nutritious ration for live stock. The tops themselves are equal to alfalfa as a hay. 

 • This crop, together with the sweet potato crop and sugar-cane crop for syrup, 

 makes possible the economic utilization of the Pine Hill Lands of the State and 

 the thinner soils of the Uplands to an extent only second in value in farm oppor- 

 tunities to the richer soils of the State. The yield of peanuts on the thinner 

 soils of the State, without fertilizer and without being limed, will average 

 about thirty-five bushels to the acre and half a ton of tops to the acre. The 

 nuts should be worth about $1.25 a bushel and the hay from the tops about 

 $25.00 to $30.00 a ton. 



Sweet Potatoes 



Sweet potatoes and peanuts demand essentially the same type of soil, 

 either a sandy or sandy loam, except that sweet potatoes require considerably 

 more moisture for best results than peanuts. For the sweet potato crop there 

 is such a thing as the land being too rich, in which case more vines than potatoes 

 will be produced. 



Within recent years the construction of sweet potato curing houses, where 

 the tuber is deprived of its excess of water, has given an increased value 



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