COST OF PRODUCING APPLES WESTERN NEW YORK. 19 



soils of some sections of the Apple Belt, which, if not given proper 

 care, become stiff, bake, and are very hard to handle. 



The most commonly used leguminous cover crops in this area are 

 red clover and vetch, while the nonleguminous crops are rye, buck- 

 wheat, oats, barley, wheat, rape, and cow-horn turnips. It is an 

 advantage if the cover crop grown is a legume, since legumes meet 

 both humus and nitrogen requirements. 



Clover is the legume most often used. Usually from 15 to 20 

 pounds of seed per acre is sown. Both medium and mammoth are 

 grown, the latter being the more popular. It has customarily been 

 sown from July 15 to August 1, though of late growers have been 

 sowing cover crops as early as June 15. 



Hairy vetch seems to make a very suitable cover crop. When 

 sown alone from a half bushel to a bushel of seed is used per acre. 

 Yetch lives through the winter and for this reason serves to prevent 

 washing and leaching due to excessive precipitation. The high 

 price of seed is often considered an objection in the use of this cover 

 crop. 



The most popular nonleguminous cover crops grown in the orch- 

 ards of this section are buckwheat and rye. Usually from one 

 half to one and a half bushels of the former and three-fourths to 

 two bushels of the latter are sown per acre. Buckwheat is usually 

 sown before September 1. Rye, when used as a cover, is sown late 

 in September or October. However, it can be sown at any time 

 between July 15 and October 15. Eye usually makes a rapid growth, 

 and it is necessary to get on the land with the plow very early in 

 the spring in order to avoid difficulty in turning it under. Rape 

 and turnips are ordinarily used in combination with other crops, 

 generally clover, sometimes buckwheat or oats. Cover crops are 

 used to a considerable extent thus in combination, clover usually 

 constituting one member, together with such crops as cow-horn tur- 

 nips, rape, barley, vetch, buckwheat, or oats. In combination pro- 

 portionally less seed of each crop is usually sown. 



It is often difficult to get a stand of a cover crop in many of the 

 bearing orchards, owing to shade, so that many growers allow their 

 orchards to grow up to weeds during the latter part of the summer. 

 Many orchardists depend upon chickweed and think it nearly as 

 valuable as any nonleguminous crop that could be used. 



Within the last few years growers have been putting in their cover 

 earlier than they used to, in order to insure a good stand before win- 

 ter, and it seems to be more and more the general opinion that this 

 should be the regular practice. The time to sow a cover crop de- 

 pends upon the cover to be sown and the character of the season in 

 which it is being used. With sufficient moisture present in the soil, 



