152 FORAGE CROPS. 



sown broadcast it ought to be on rich and clean land, 

 otherwise the growth will not be sufficiently vigor- 

 ous, and the weeds may choke the rape. If sown as 

 a catch crop or as a green manure it may be made 

 to follow any kind of crop, as occasion may 

 require, even though weed seeds may be abundantly 

 present in the land, for the pasturing or the plowing 

 in of the crop, as the case may be, can be done suffi- 

 ciently early to prevent the maturing of weed seeds 

 in the rape. 



This plant may usually be broadcasted with 

 advantage on overturned sod. The abundance of 

 the vegetable matter furnished by the grass roots 

 promotes growth, and such lands are not so liable to 

 be filled with weed seeds or other germs of plant life, 

 as lands that have been cropped successively with 

 grain for a term of years. If rape is sown after win- 

 ter rye, or mixed grains or corn that has been eaten 

 off, two crops may thus be obtained in a single year 

 from the same piece of sod. Such cropping is favor- 

 able to the clearing of the land, howsoever the rape 

 may be grown. And the same is true when it fol- 

 lows cereal crops or clover that has been harvested 

 at maturity. It may also be grown with much 

 advantage on land that is being summer fallowed, 

 whether the rape crop is 'turned under or pastured 

 off. The aim should be to follow rape that has been 

 cultivated with some cereal crop, because of the 

 favorable condition in which it leaves the land for 

 growing these crops. 



Soil. — Rape is best adapted to what may be 

 termed deep, rich, moist and free working soils, well 

 stored with humus. It grows magnificently in muck 

 soils not unduly saturated with water during the 



