CROPPING SYSTEMS WASHINGTON, OREGON, IDAHO. 



11 



order to include clover in this sort of rotation one of the following 

 four-year cropping systems may be used: 



First year. 



Second year. 



Third year. 



Fourth year. 



Corn, beans, pota- 



Winter wheat, spring 



Spring wheat, oats, 



Clover for hay, seed, 



toes, or field peas 



wheat, oats, bar- 



barley, or field 



or pasture. 



planted in rows 



ley, or field peas. 



peas. (Grain 





and cultivated in 





seeded as a nurse 





rows; summer 





crop with clover.) 





fallow. 









For farmers who wish to use intertilled crops instead of summer 

 fallowing, the first two years of this plan are the same as the first 

 two years of the preceding three-year rotations. Farmers who do not 

 wish to grow intertilled crops may substitute summer fallow during 

 the first season. During the third year spring wheat, oats, barley, 

 or field peas is seeded as a nurse crop with clover, and the fourth 

 year the clover is used for seed, hay, or pasture. 



CLOVER FOR SEED. 



As clover is a comparatively new crop in the moister sections of 

 eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and northern Idaho, many 

 farmers are not familiar with its use. On every farm it is possible 

 to utilize a limited acreage of this crop for supplying the live stock 

 with hay and pasture. The area so occupied, however, would be 

 small in comparison with the total area under cultivation, as only 

 a small number of animals are kept per farm. Thus it would not 

 be possible to use clover often enough in the rotation materially to 

 affect yields if this were the only way in which it could be used. 

 By growing it for seed as well as for hay or pasture, however, the 

 area devoted to this crop could be increased until from one-fourth to 

 one-third of the tillable land would be devoted to clover every year. 

 That clover seed may be successfully and profitably produced has 

 been proved by several years' experience in parts of Idaho, Lewis, and 

 Nez Perce Counties, Idaho. Seed production was started in eastern 

 Nez Perce County in 1908 and the first clover seed huller was brought 

 into the county a year later. The amount of land devoted to clover 

 seed production gradually increased until in 1916 six clover hullers 

 were necessary to care for the seed crops. The farmers who have 

 grown seed find not only that it is a profitable crop but that the sub- 

 sequent grain crops yield from 15 to 25 per cent per acre more than 

 from land where clover was never produced. 



