JULY: FIFTH WEEK 191 



com, early potatoes, lettuce, radishes, and so forth, the 

 beans will have the ground well covered soon after the 

 other crops are off, with a valuable supply of humus-forming 

 material to be turned under just before killing frosts. They 

 mature in about a hundred days, but for spading under 

 they may be sown now. Plant as you would ordinary dwarf 

 beans. 



Two other late-summer catch crops of value on the home 

 acre are dwarf Essex rape and buckwheat. Rape is one of 

 the quickest-growing of all catch crops, and when a supply 

 of green feed can be utihzed late in the summer by a cow, a 

 pig, a horse or even chickens, a supply of seed should be 

 kept on hand and sown in any vacant rows or between rows 

 of nearly matured vegetables. The seed costs only twelve 

 to fifteen cents a pound and two or three pounds will be 

 ample for use in this way. Under favorable conditions the 

 crop will be big enough to use within six to eight weeks 

 after sowing. 



If bees are kept, or there are chickens to be fed, a small 

 patch of buckwheat should be put in. For the bees a few 

 rows through the garden will answer. For mature grain 

 it should be sown at once; for a winter mulch, sown with 

 crimson clover, or for spading under this fall, it may be 

 sown at any time during the next two or three weeks. 



"Soil Binders" for Winter Cover 



If your soil is likely to wash or to blow, any parts of the 

 garden that are growing late crops should be planted as 

 soon as they are cleared this fall with crimson clover, vetch 

 and rye, or rye alone. In latitudes north of New York the 

 clover is liable to winter-kill, although this can be guarded 

 against to some extent by sowing buckwheat with it. A 

 pound of seed, costing about fifteen cents, will be plenty for 

 a fifty-by-fifty-foot patch. It will be ready to cut green 

 for the family cow or to spade under early in May. If 

 crimson clover may be killed, vetch should be used. Either 

 one may be sown for three or four weeks yet, but the earlier 



