FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
151 
should be seeded to sorghum or corn 
or some of those staple crops that will 
be a complete contrast to the previous 
crop, both in their rooting system and 
in their methods of getting soil fertility. 
Then, for the winter cover crop, we 
should continue that same idea by 
growing what we know to be the most 
effective scavenger crop in the whole 
list of crops; that is, winter oats. The 
ordinary truck grower will ridicule this 
idea of growing what he calls a cheap 
crop on his expensive land. This may 
be reasonable to a certain extent, but 
would it not be better to do that than 
to have his soil contaminated with the 
soil diseases that belong to his partic¬ 
ular truck crops to such an extent that 
in a year or two the land would have 
to be thrown out of use, because it 
could not be used for the crops that 
would pay best ? It would be true 
economy on the part of the vegetable 
growers to practice this diversification 
o^ crops to the highest degree possible. 
CROP ROTATION 
Crop rotation in vegetable growing 
should include a complete change of 
the type of crop. For instance, we 
know certain crops to be deep rooters. 
Such crops should be followed by 
crops that are subject to certain 
diseases, such as wilt in cucum¬ 
bers, drop in lettuce, etc. Scientific in¬ 
vestigation has given us the informa¬ 
tion that certain crops are immune to 
the diseases that other crops have, so 
we should never follow up with a crop 
of the same type or family. The main 
idea in crop rotation should be to main¬ 
tain the soil fertility and soil sanitation, 
and to increase the crop production. 
Now let me suggest one or two ro¬ 
tations that from observation have been 
found efficient in maintaining and 
building up soil fertility. We know, for 
instance, that cabbage is a gross feeder 
and that it wants plenty of moisture. 
To maintain the moisture supply there 
should be a large amount of humus in 
the soil. The crop preceding cabbage 
should be a crop that will give this 
amount of humus to the soil, and also 
maintain its fertility. That crop should 
be a legume crop, such as velvet beans, 
soy beans, or a crop of beggarweed, 
which has been cut and allowed to dry 
before being plowed under. If there 
is a large amount of stable manure 
available, a good plan would be to ap¬ 
ply this manure broadcast and grow a 
crop on it that would take away the 
rankness of this stable manure, before 
planting cabbage. Then, immediately 
after cabbage, let the land either pro¬ 
duce a crop of hay, or a crop of velvet 
beans, or some crop that would pro¬ 
tect the soil during the hot summer 
months, and at the same time maintain 
or improve its fertility. The velvet- 
bean crop should be used to a far great¬ 
er extent by all growers than it is. In 
growing watermelons, for instance, vel¬ 
vet beans should be planted at the last 
working of the melon crop. When the 
melons are all marketed, those left on 
the field should be removed and either 
fed to livestock or buried. The land 
should be smoothed with either a har¬ 
row or a weeder, and allowed to grow 
