CROPS AND SOIL IMPROVEMENT 



prove physical condition by its net-work of roots. 

 Heavy grass sods furnish a vast amount of organic 

 matter which not only supplies available plant- 

 food to succeeding crops, but in its decay affects 

 the availability of some part of the stores of po- 

 tential fertility in the land. 



Prejudice against Timothy .-- Timothy, among 

 the grasses, is especially in disrepute as a soil- 

 builder, and yet its value is great. The belief 

 that timothy is hard on land is based upon ob- 

 servation of bad treatment of this grass. There is 

 a common custom of seeding land down to timothy 

 when it ceases to have sufficient available plant- 

 food for a profitable tilled crop, and usually this 

 is the third year after a sod has been broken. 

 The seeding is made with a grain crop that needs 

 all the commercial fertilizer that may chance to 

 be used. Clover may be seeded also, and on a 

 majority of farms it fails to thrive when sown. 

 If clover does grow, the succeeding crop of timo- 

 thy may be heavy. If clover does not grow, the 

 timothy is not so heavy. The seeding to grass is 

 made partly because a tilled crop would not pay, 

 and partly because a hay crop is needed. It 

 comes in where other crops cannot come with 

 profit, and it produces fairly well, or very well, 



[72] 



