THE SOIL 69 



liable to get out of bounds in this respect. I 

 recall that one year we were delayed in start- 

 ing our cultivation and before we got around 

 to it some of the rye was beginning to head out 

 and was all of seven feet tall. It was some job 

 to wrestle that crop of rye under ground. We 

 had to cut it and then go over it with disk har- 

 rows and after that plow it under. Some of it 

 we even had to haul off before we could culti- 

 vate at all. 



Oats, buckwheat, millet and other annuals 

 have been used as cover crops, but they are not 

 satisfactory for this purpose because they die 

 in winter and often leave little to be turned un- 

 der in the spring. Eye, wheat, crimson clover, 

 winter vetch, rape, all these live through the 

 winter and all start into growth quite early in 

 the spring. 



The cultivation as I have said should begin 

 as early as possible and should be kept up until 

 about the first or at the latest the middle of 

 August. Prolonged cultivation may be harm- 

 ful in that it does not allow the new wood and 

 the fruit buds to ripen properly before winter 

 and it shortens the growing season in which 

 the cover crop is getting established. I always 

 like to see a vigorous cover over the ground 

 by the middle of October at the latest. Some 

 of your neighbors may object if you plant rye 

 or wheat at such early dates, thinking that you 



