CROPS AND SOIL IMPROVEMENT 



releases plant-food and is peculiarly efficient in 

 killing out weeds. 



Care must be exercised about perserving mois- 

 ture in the ground, and therefore a green crop 

 should not be plowed under immediately before 

 seeding time. When a soil is thin, there may be 

 no better preparatory crop than the cowpea, 

 which will not make too rank a growth in the 

 north to prevent its handling with a weighted 

 disk harrow. By this means the soil below is 

 left firm, and the rich vines are mixed with the 

 surface soil, where most needed. It is always 

 a mistake to bury fertility in the bottom of the 

 furrow when a soil is thin and small seeds are to 

 be sown. The infertile ground lying next the 

 subsoil is not what is needed at the surface when 

 preparing for a sod. 



It is a good practice to use the early summer 

 in making conditions better for an August seeding, 

 if the land has fallen below a profitable state of 

 productiveness. A growth may be plowed down 

 in time for firming the seed-bed, or it may be 

 cut into the surface soil with a harrow, or the 

 time may be used in freeing inert plant-food and 

 destroying weed seed. On better soils, and in 

 warm latitudes, a crop for hay may be removed, 



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