50 THE ROTATION OF CROPS 



wheat, while the amount of beef sold from the land is 

 less than that of wheat. It is, therefore, usually more 

 profitable for the farmer to produce beef than wheat. 

 The plant food removed, the price in the market, and 

 the labor required to produce a crop, must all be consid- 

 ered in estimating the profits in raising it. It appears 

 from the picture that butter removes very little plant food 

 of any kind from the soil, while it is worth from ten to 

 twenty times as much per pound as wheat. The labor 

 required to produce butter is, however, much greater 

 than that required to produce wheat. 



Cotton The cotton plant removes a large quantity 

 of fertilizing matter from the soil, but if the lint alone 

 were removed it would take but little from the soil. The 

 cotton seed is very rich in nitrogen and phosphoric acid 

 and if this is not returned to the soil the land soon be- 

 comes poor. 



If the cotton seed is sold the land should be restored by 

 growing a crop of cowpeas, alfalfa, or crimson clover. 



Rotation Suggested. The diagrams on pages 48 and 49 

 and Figure 18, suggest a rotation of crops for the farmer. 

 After raising for a time crops that remove much nitrogen, 

 as wheat, oats, Indian corn, or tobacco, it would be wise 

 to sow the land to clover or some other nitrogen-gathering 

 plant, and some kind of grass, and to feed the product to 

 cattle for two or more years. The legumes will enrich the 

 soil with nitrogen, while the small amounts of phosphoric 

 acid and potash removed by the milk, butter, or beef, will 

 enable the soil to become stocked with these plant foods 

 by the natural method described in the first paragraph of 

 this lesson. 



