THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 237 



Corn Rotation with Soy-Beans. 



Previous crop. 1904. 1905. 1906. 1907. Av. 



Corn (continuously) 48.21 53.00 62.44 45.56 52.30 



Soy-beans (alternately) 58.72 68.26 75.53 63.62 66.53 



The straw and stalks invariably made a ranker growth after 

 the cow-peas. 



Seed. 



Cow-peas are an uncertain crop for seed in this state, as the 

 yield of seed varies greatly from year to year, depending upon 

 weather conditions. When the summer is favorable and hot 

 the yield of seed is quite satisfactory, but when the summer is 

 cool or too wet or too dry, the yield is apt to be low. As shown 

 by the trials at this Station, in favorable seasons, good pro- 

 ducing varieties have yielded from fifteen to twenty bushels per 

 acre, while in an unfavorable season the same varieties have 

 produced only from five to seven bushels per acre. This un- 

 certainty of a seed crop makes the cow-pea an undesirable crop 

 to grow in a commercial way for seed production, but the value 

 of the crop for soil improvement, pasture, hay and en- 

 silage, and the high price of the seed upon the market, makes 

 it desirable for every farmer to grow enough cow-peas for seed 

 to supply his own needs. At the present price of seed ($3 per 

 bushel) the average farmer does not feel that he can afford to 

 buy the seed of cow-peas for green manuring, although the 

 expenditure of this amount would doubtless be repaid by the 

 increase in the yield of crops through the increased fertility of 

 the soil. However, if the farmer can raise each year from five 

 to ten acres of cow-peas for seed he will have a supply of seed 

 on hand for his own use, which in favorable seasons will have 

 cost him less than one dollar per bushel to produce, and in un- 

 favorable seasons the cost should not be greater than the aver- 

 age market price of good seed peas. 



Other Uses. 

 Besides the uses for cow-peas discussed above there are a 

 few minor uses for which the crop is sometimes grown. In 

 some of the Southern states where cow-peas seed heavily the 



