Food for It is now known to be much more economical than pastur- 

 8 ing, not only that more stock can be kept per acre, but the 



3* feeding results are more profitable. The crops chiefly used 

 are vetches, the clovers, rye, buckwheat, spurry, fodder corn, 

 stock beets, cow peas, etc. A succession of crops should be 

 grown, the earliest in most sections being crimson clover, sown 

 the previous summer, and followed by red clover, corn, etc., 

 and ending with cow peas and the vetches. The Silo is used 

 to store green food for the winter months, fodder corn being 

 most commonly used in the Silo. 



A rank growth of forage is required, and the maturity of 

 the crop is not a consideration. The soil should be made very 

 fertile and fertilizers used with a free hand. Farmers can 

 easily test the value of heavy fertilizer applications in soiling, 

 by comparing different parts of the same field, differently 

 fertilized. Apply per acre, just before, or even with the seed, 

 from 400 to 800 pounds of phosphate, and as soon as the 

 plants are well up, top-dress with Nitrate of Soda, using 

 300 pounds per acre. Top-dress in quite the same manner 

 for second crops. It is a quick, rank growth of green sub- 

 stance that is wanted, and for this purpose no other form of 

 Nitrogen is as quick-acting as Nitrate of Soda. 



How Money Crops Feed. 



The substance of plants is largely water 

 what the an( j var i a tJ ns of woody fiber, yet these 



Food is. comprise no part of what is commonly 



understood as plant food. More or less by accident was 

 discovered the value of farmyard manures and general farm 

 refuse and roughage as a means of increasing the growth of 

 plants. In the course of time, the supply of these manures 

 failed to equal the need, and it became necessary to search 

 for other means of feeding plants. The steps in the search 

 were many, covering years of careful investigation, and it is 

 needless to go into a lengthy description here; but, as a 

 result, we have the established fact that the so-called food 

 of plants consists of three different substances, Nitrogen, 

 Potash, and Phosphates. 



