44 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



another rest. From the point of view of the employment of 

 man and horse labor, other enterprises are needed. Small 

 grain, oats or barley, demands the farmer's energy just when he 

 cannot be working on the corn. The oats, barley, or spring 

 wheat is seeded very early in the spring, usually beginning 

 about a month before the soil and air are warm enough for 

 planting corn. The corn is then planted and cultivated several 

 times before hay harvest. Not only does the small grain 

 supplement the corn in providing employment, but it provides 

 the nurse crop for seeding meadows. The harvesting of a 

 limited amount of clover hay is supplementary to corn in its 

 labor demands in the north central states. The clover harvest 

 precedes the oat harvest and laps with the last half of corn 

 cultivation, but this lapping may not reduce the amount of 

 corn which one man may grow, because the limit on corn is 

 set by the area one can prepare the seed bed for, plant, and 

 cultivate the first and second time. After the corn reaches this 

 stage, one can care for it and devote from a third to a half of 

 his time to other work. 



Corn, oats, and clover may be called supplementary crops, 

 because they fit together nicely from the standpoint of demand 

 for labor in their production. They are also supplementary 

 in their utilization on the dairy farm, silage, clover hay, and 

 ground oats making excellent cow feed, and the oat straw is 

 needed for bedding. 



Crops which require attention at the same time of year are 

 said to be competitive or conflicting crops. Corn, cotton, tobacco, 

 sugar beets, and potatoes are examples of competing crops 

 which conflict with each other in their demands for the atten- 

 tion of the farmer, and it happens that all these are tilled crops, 

 and for this reason any one of them may be chosen so far as 

 the problem of maintaining tilth is concerned. Other examples 

 of competing crops are oats, barley, and spring wheat. These 

 crops compete for the farmer's time and are about equally 

 useful as nurse crops for starting meadows, hence the most 

 profitable one should be chosen and the others dropped out of 

 the field system. 



