THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 235 



disking ahead of the drill between the rows of shocks. Occa- 

 sionally, by early thrashing, the field may be cleared soon enough 

 to plant the peas, but such planting should not be delayed long 

 after July 1. Planted in this way at this Station, cow-peas have 

 made a growth of twelve to eighteen inches by the last of Sep- 

 tember, when the crop was plowed under. Such fall-plowed land 

 is in excellent condition for corn the next season, since there is 

 sufficient time between the plowing under of the cow-peas and 

 the planting of corn for the cow-peas to decay and for the moist- 

 ure to become replenished in the soil. Table III gives the yield 

 of wheat and corn when grown in rotation with cow-peas used as 

 a catch-crop after wheat, as compared with the yields when wheat 

 and corn were grown in rotation without the intermediate green 

 manuring crop of cow-peas. 



Table III. — Yield of Corn per Acre, Bushels. 



1904. 1995. 1906. 1907. Average 

 Following cow-peas used as catch 



after wheat 44.89 63.55 65.81 37.76 50.75 



Following wheat without cow-peas 32.40 44.89 57.57 32.21 41.77 



Yield of wheat per acre, bushels, in rotation with corn, second year after 



cow-peas: 

 1904 1905. 1906. 1907. Average 



With cow-peas 17.59 22.53 16.58 9.25. 16.49 



Without cow-peas 17.20 18.67 14.74 9.05. 14.91 



These results show that cow-peas used as green manure !nv ;. 

 had a remarkable effect in increasing the yield of corn, the aver- 

 age annual increase in yield for the four years being nearly nine 

 bushels per acre; also, there was a small increase (about one and 

 a half bushel per acre) in the wheat crop following the corn 

 the second year after the cow-peas were plowed under. The rela- 

 tively low yield of wheat on all plots is in part due to the unsuit- 

 able seed-bed ; the wheat was planted in the corn-stalks each fall. 



This seems to be a more practical and successful method of 

 using cow-peas for soil improvement than by growing the peas 

 with corn or sowing them as a catch-crop in continuous wheat 

 culture. Also this is a practical way of maintaining the nitrogen 



