378 FORAGE PLANTS AND THEIR CULTURE 



but only a few of the most important and their modifica- 

 tions need to be discussed. 



1. Corn, oats, wheat, clover, timothy. This five-year, 

 five-crop rotation is the commonest one employed in the 

 Central States. The timothy is seeded with the wheat 

 in the fall, and the clover on the wheat in the spring. In 

 the fourth year of the rotation the crop is largely clover, 

 and in the fifth mainly timothy. Rye may be substituted 

 for wheat in some places. 



2. Corn, oats, wheat, clover. Where the hay is not 

 needed for live stock, the timothy may be omitted and the 

 clover, preferably mammoth, grown for seed only, the 

 straw and the stubble being plowed under. This is an 

 excellent plan to follow on farms where it is not desired 

 to keep live stock. 



3. Corn, wheat, clover. This rotation of three years 

 and three crops is employed where wheat is sown in the 

 spring. Rye, barley or oats may be used instead of the 

 wheat, and any other cultivated crop in place of the corn. 



4. Corn, clover or corn, corn, clover. This is the sim- 

 plest of all clover rotations, but probably brings the clover 

 too frequently to secure the best results. The clover 

 may be sown in the corn at its last cultivation, or in the 

 spring in the stubble, or after preparing the land. 



445. Effect of clover in rotations when only the stubble 

 is turned under. Red clover usually exercises a mark- 

 edly beneficial influence on the crop that succeeds it, even 

 where the clover has been cropped. This is ascribed 

 mainly to the humus and nitrogen added to the soil by the 

 roots and stubble. 



At the Massachusetts Experiment Station, potatoes 

 after clover stubble, on land that had not been fertilized 

 for 16 years, the yield of potatoes was 95 per cent as great 



