More than - one Crop In one Season 



181 



2. DOUBLE -CROPPING 



Whenever land and equipment are very expensive, 

 it is necessary that the vegetable -gardening be inten- 

 sive. Capital and land should be kept at work. One 

 of the means of doing this is to practice what market- 

 gardeners know as double -cropping, which is the rais- 

 ing of more than one crop on the land in one season. 



Double -cropping is of two species: (1) succession- 

 cropping, or the growing of one crop after another on 

 the same land; (2) companion -cropping, or the grow- 

 ing of two or more crops together. 



Succession -cropping is a kind of short rotation. 

 In selecting crops for succession -cropping, the follow- 

 ing principles must be borne in mind: (1) each crop 

 in the succession should be able to mature in less 

 time than the whole season; (2) the tillage demanded 

 by the first crop in the series should be such that it 

 will leave the land in proper condition for the suc- 

 ceeding crop; (3) the crops should be so much unlike 

 each other that they will not tend to exhaust the soil 

 b}^ demanding similar elements of plant-food, and will 

 not carry diseases and insects from one crop to another. 



It is usually preferable to use crops of different 

 botanical families, for by this means the fertility of 

 the soil is not so likely to be impaired, and diseases 

 and insects are starved in the rotation. It is well to 

 follow the root -crops with fibrous -rooted surface- 

 feeding crops. In some cases the succession may 

 extend over parts of two years, as when strawberries 

 are followed by late potatoes or cabbages. In this 



