Ee, Op 
et 
SUDAN GRASS AND RELATED PLANTS. Os 
must be either a money crop or a soilimprover. In certain Southern 
States where good prices are to be obtained for hay, Sudan grass 
may be used like the corn or wheat of our Northern States as one of 
the money crops, but in other States it is not likely to Rent the 
well-known plants of 
our common rota- 
tions. It probably 
exhausts the fertility 
of the soil as rapidly 
as corn or cotton. 
Sorghums are popu- 
larly supposed to be 
“hard on the soil,” 
and this reputed 
deleterious effect on 
fertility is frequently 
mentioned by farm- 
ers in the timothy 
and red clover region 
as their reason for 
not growing Sudan 
orass. 
A 4-year rotation 
for the cotton belt 
which has been sug- 
gested by the Texas 
Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station (29, 
p- 9) is, for the first 
and second years, 
cotton; third year, 
corm or grain sor- 
ghum, with cowpeas 
interplanted, to be 
pastured or plowed 
under for green ma- 
nure ;fourth year, Su- 
dangrass. Insucha 
rotation the grain 
sorghums ghould be 
teed only in those regions where they are not subject a attacks of the 
sorghum midge. It is quite likely that such a rotation would require 
the application of some fertilizer, preferably barnyard manure, at 
least once in four years, since the small quantity of humus added: by 
the legume would hardly be sufficient to maintain fertility. 
53321°—21—Bull. 981——-4 
Fic. 15.—Growth of Sudan grass (at left) compared with vba of mil- 
let, 48 days from planting. 
