FORAGE PROBLEM 123 



cowpeas, soy beans have a wider range of usefulness, 

 are more easily cured for hay, much more easily har- 

 vested and thrashed for seed, yield more seed, ripen more 

 evenly, are more nutritious, command a better price, are 

 less sensitive to frost, lose less in handling of the hay, 

 crack less in thrashing, are less likely to be attacked by 

 weevil, and the roots and stubble leave more nitrogen 

 and humus in the soil. Cowpeas have the one superior 

 virtue of making a heavier yield on a poor, sandy soil. 



As a main crop, sow soy beans ten days after corn 

 planting time, as a catch crop, as soon as the prior crop 

 is off the land. If drilled in rows to be cultivated, one- 

 third of a bushel will seed an acre; if drilled solid, like 

 wheat, use six pecks. 



For hay, cut when the pods are fully formed ; for seed, 

 cut when the plants begin to turn yellow, cure as for hay, 

 and thrash. The thrashed forage will be eaten greedily 

 by horses and cattle and they will thrive on it. At 

 present prices soy beans are one of the most profitable 

 crops that can be grown, and they fit admirably into 

 almost any good system of crop rotation. 



A still newer crop of great value to live stock owners 

 is called guar. If this fodder crop proves to be all that 

 is claimed for it, some of the others will be relegated to 

 the background. Guar is described as an erect annual 

 reaching a height of three to four feet in an arid country 

 and five to seven feet in the rain belt. As a land im- 

 prover it ranks with the cowpea, and as a forage plant it 

 is said to equal alfalfa. Just imagine the amount of 

 forage in a crop of alfalfa six feet high ! Guar is said 

 to produce enormous quantities of seed — twenty to thirty 

 bushels per acre, even in a dry country, and proportion- 

 ately larger yields in humid countries. In the cultiva- 

 tion of any of these legumes there is something to be 

 made in producing seed, as well as hay. 



