198 SOILING CROPS AND THE SILO. 



well adapted to the growth of any kind of field roots 

 for soiling uses, since the labor in preparing them for 

 the seed is usually in-er-much, and the plants grow 

 slowly in them. On the other hand, infertile sands 

 do not produce enough growth. Black loam soils, 

 such as abound on the prairie, have high adaptation, 

 but they are apt to be much infested with weeds. 

 Slough and swamp soils will produce large quanti- 

 ties of such food after they have been drained, but 

 in them the growth of top is relatively greater than 

 in other soils. Peat soils, until reduced, are usually 

 not good root-producing soils. But the gray sands 

 of the Rocky mountain valleys will produce field 

 roots abundantly when supplied with water. 



Place in the Rotation. — Field roots should 

 always be grown as a cleaning crop, whether grown 

 for the roots only or for the roots and tops ; in other 

 words, whether they are grown for winter feeding 

 or for summer and autumn feeding. But when 

 grown for the last named use, they cannot, for vari- 

 ous reasons, be made so complete a cleaning crop for 

 the land, unless they are the only crop grown on 

 the same during that season. The natural place for 

 field roots, therefore, is after grain crops and on 

 soils that need renovation, not only in the sense of 

 being cleaned, but also in that of being fertilized. 



These crops take much fertility out of the land 

 and therefore cannot be successfully grown on 

 depleted soils, rmless these soils have first been 

 enriched. But it is a very propitious time to enrich 

 lands when root crops are to be grown upon them, 

 since, owing to the cleaning given to the soil, the 

 crops which follow are enabled to feed upon the 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



