Green Forage Crops 271 



Japan clover. 



Japan clover, though not a true clover, is valuable 

 as a pasture crop because it is well adapted to poor and 

 light lands and withstands drought well, growing and 

 spreading when other plants die for lack of moisture. It 

 thrives from Virginia southward and as far west as Kansas. 

 It is seldom fertilized, even though it is much like other 

 clovers and responds to liberal applications of the minerals. 



Cowpea and soybean. 



The clovers, which range in their length of life from 

 annuals to perennials, are, too, able to obtain their neces- 

 sary supplies of minerals more readily from soil sources 

 than the distinctly summer crops, as the cowpea and soy- 

 bean, because of the longer period of preparatory growth 

 in the case of the former. That is, clover or vetch, while 

 it does make a very rapid growth through a short period, 

 does not obtain all of its food during that period. In its 

 preparatory stage of growth fall and early spring a 

 very considerable amount of food, the larger proportion, 

 in many instances, is obtained, which in its later stages 

 of growth is simply distributed throughout the entire 

 plant ; while the cowpea and soybean, on the other hand, 

 must obtain the entire amount of food needed for their 

 growth and development during a short period, and these 

 crops reach their best stage of development for forage 

 in two and one-half to three months from time of planting. 

 Hence, these crops, which possess apparently greater 

 foraging powers, and make their development during 

 the season when conditions are most favorable for rapid 

 change of insoluble to soluble food in the soil, require, 

 when the conditions of the land are the same in each case, 



