SOYBEANS 117 



what it is at present they are going to be rather too costly for 

 the man who has ten acres of orchard or over. It is unfortunate 

 that this is so, as vetches are certainly about all that could be 

 asked for the purpose in view. On small blocks of orchard, or 

 under special conditions, they may be admissible, but as a 

 general, commercial proposition they do not appeal to the man 

 who pays the bills. It is to be hoped that a plan may be devised 

 whereby the man who owns an orchard can grow his own vetch 

 seed, but up to the present time that method has not been 

 developed. 



Soybeans. This is a cover crop which orchardists have used 

 with a good deal of satisfaction for a number of years, but it has 

 to be handled quite differently from most cover crops to be 

 entirely successful. Sown broadcast, or even in drill, at the 

 ordinary date, it fails to make growth enough to furnish much 

 humus or to perform any of the offices of a cover crop with con- 

 spicuous success. But if it can be drilled in about the middle 

 of June with the rows far enough apart to admit of cultivation 

 and then if it is cultivated two or perhaps three times before the 

 orchard is laid by, it will do splendidly. For sowing soybeans 

 in this way the grower may use a small five-hole drill which is 

 used largely in the Middle West for drilling wheat in the 

 autumn into land where corn has been grown the summer 

 previous. Stop up all but the two outside holes and then 

 spread the drill as wide as possible. Thus two rows at a time 

 are drilled far enough apart to cultivate (Fig. 29). After the 

 plants are up they are given two or three cultivations and then 

 the land is seeded down to rape or turnips or buckwheat or rye. 

 This makes a fine combination cover. If the beans come along 

 nicely and ripen a good crop of seed, it may be harvested and 

 threshed and will usually bring two and a half to three dollars 

 per bushel wholesale. This leaves whatever else was sown on the 

 land as a cover and the soil gets the benefit of the root-systems 

 of the soybeans after they are mown off. On the other hand if 

 the crop is not good enough to warrant harvesting, if the stand 

 is poor or the frost comes before the beans are mature enough, 

 then there is a fine crop to plow under. The common white pea- 



