940 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
The Cover Crop Problem. 
No I. 
You advise green manures. Please 
mention them in their order of superior¬ 
ity. Is rye any better than buckwheat? 
IIow can I use rye without losing one 
whole season in my rotation of corn, oats 
(rye), grass? Is rye desirable to sow 
and then plow under to plant potatoes, 
planting potatoes at the same time as 
plowing the rye under. Is rye desira¬ 
ble for sweet corn? What commercial 
fertilizer would be best for sweet corn? 
More than 20 people have asked me to 
give “the whole story” of green manuring 
or the use of cover crops. That is too 
much for me, but I will try and give 
what little we have learned about it. 
A “Cover Crop.” —Let us understand 
to begin with that a “cover crop” is any 
living growth which covers or occupies 
the ground at a time when it would 
otherwise be idle. The two extremes for 
idle land are “fallowing” or cover crop¬ 
ping. Fallowing would be represented by 
the “Clark” system of grass seeding. This 
means constant working of the soil and 
tearing up and killing out the living 
growth. This destroys weeds and foul 
grass, fines the soil and stimulates the 
chemical processes in the soil, but it de¬ 
stroys organic matter. At the other ex¬ 
treme we have “cover cropping.” This 
means sowing a collection of seeds so that 
when the regular farm crop is taken off 
the ground will be at once occupied by a 
new crop which will keep the land busy, 
when otherwise, in the regular farm rota¬ 
tion, the land would be unoccupied. 
The Object. —The four chief things 
promoted by the cover crop are, saving 
fertility, adding organic matter, destroy¬ 
ing certain weeds a id starting chemical 
action in the soil. The chief saving in 
plant food is in the nitrates or soluble 
forms of the expensive element—nitrogen. 
This nitrogen is chiefly found in organic 
forms—that is plants of various kinds. 
These decay in the soil and as they de-. 
cay changes occur which make this nitro¬ 
gen soluble so that it will run out of the 
soil in the drainage water. The greatest 
loss in the nitrates occurs in late Sum¬ 
mer and Fall. At that time the soil is 
usually moist and warm, and thus be¬ 
comes a regular factory of nature for 
turning the organic matter in manure, sod 
or other forms, into nitrates. So long as 
there is a vigorous crop like corn or cab¬ 
bage, with its live roots on the soil, but 
little of this soluble nitrogen will be lost. 
The strong and larger roots get it all. 
At frost, however, our Summer crops are 
killed or stop growing while this forma¬ 
tion of nitrate goes on unchecked in the 
soil. Take corn, for example—the most 
vigorous of our farm crops and the one on 
which we naturally put most of the ma¬ 
nure. Corn grows strongly through Au¬ 
gust and early September, and then stops 
just when that nitrogen factory in the 
soil is most busy in turning out nitrates. 
If, when the corn is cut, this active soil is 
left bare, these valuable nitrates find no 
living roots to absorb and utilize them, 
they will be washed out of the soil and 
lost to the farm. If, on the other hand, 
the soil is covered by a thick, lusty crop 
of rye, clover, vetch or turnips, most of 
these nitrates will be saved and stored up 
for future use on that farm. This result 
is obtained by sowing seeds right in the 
corn at the last cultivation and letting 
this “cover crop” grow on through the 
Fall after the corn is cut. 
Saving and Adding. —While saving 
these nitrates is perhaps the chief fertil¬ 
izing value of most cover crops there are 
other uses. In most soils there are sup¬ 
plies of partly available plant food which 
might feed one plant yet fail to feed 
another. For example, there seems little 
doubt that buckwheat and turnips are 
able to utilize forms of potash and phos¬ 
phoric acid which some other crops can¬ 
not “eat.” Thus, I am sure that on our 
soil Cow-horn turnips will make a fair 
growth without the addition of potash or 
phosphate, while wheat, and to a less ex¬ 
tent corn, would suffer. Let me grow a 
crop of these turnips and plow them un¬ 
der and then plant corn or seed wheat 
and the latter will give 25 per cent more 
grain! It would be much the same with 
buckwheat on our particular soil. I do 
not say this would be true of all soils, but 
it illustrates one value of the cover crop 
in working that great fertilizer factory 
inside the soil. And here is another 
thing. We may use fertilizer and espe¬ 
cially potash and phosphoric acid on the 
cover crop to advantage. This fertilizer 
makes these crops larger and thus gives 
them greater bulk to work into the soil 
and if the cover crop be clover, peas or 
beans this means more nitrogen from the 
air. Then, as we all know, the pod-bear¬ 
ing plants, like clover, beans, vetch and 
peas obtain nitrogen from the air, store 
it up for iis and turn it into the soil. I 
am justified then in saying that the cover 
crop saves the nitrates, makes certain 
plant food more available and adds to the 
supply of nitrogen. 
Organic Matter. —I do not know how 
it is with you, but the two great needs of 
our soil are organic matter and lime. 
This is partly the fault of the soil itself 
and of the generations of farmers who 
occupied the farm. We have merely a 
thin rind of soil over the solid rock on a 
steep hillside. This gives ideal condi¬ 
tions for the destruction and loss of or¬ 
ganic matter. During a drought this thin 
layer of soil bakes hard and the organic 
matter is burned and dried up. Then 
come heavy, gushing rains, which gully 
and soak the land—washing it bare. Let 
a farmer take an old brick and crush it 
up fine. Add water to it and see what 
sort of “soil” he will make. It will 
form a sort of mud, and when heat 
enough is given to dry it out, back it 
goes to a hard, brick-like mass in which 
little or nothing will grow. Take that 
same crushed brick and add a little lime 
well mixed in. Then take a handful of 
clover hay, crush it fine and mix it all 
through the brick and lime, water it and 
you have soil—not the best until the 
clover decays, but something approaching 
a “loam.” Now, in a larger way, our 
tough old hills need just this treatment 
of adding the lime and the clover to the 
brick. We cannot hope to work our soil 
profitably until we lime it and stuff it 
with organic matter of some sort—grass, 
weeds or special “cover crops.” In some 
cases this can be best done through dairy¬ 
ing—growing grass and clover and corn 
and putting the manure back on the land. 
Even in this case it will pay to put cover 
crops in the corn for Fall pasture or 
early Spring fodder because the more ma¬ 
nure we use on the corn the greater dan¬ 
ger of losing nitrates from the bare 
ground in Fall. Those of us who do not 
keep stock find in the cover crop the 
cheapest and easiest way of supplying or¬ 
ganic matter to the soil. If we can sow 
one bushel of rye, 15 pounds of vetch and 
a pound of turnips per acre and get in 
the Spring as much organic matter as we 
could in eight or 10 tons of manure, we 
are ahead—since Nature hauls this crop 
up hill and spreads it for us. 
Other Uses. —Thick growing crops 
like buckwheat or rape will smother out 
many weeds and help clean the land. We 
have reports of cases where thickly seeded 
buckwheat has killed out quack grass be¬ 
fore it had a full chance to occupy the 
land. On the other hand, it must be said 
that in some cases cover crops give weeds 
an extra show. In some cases a thin, 
careless seeding is made, and the weeds 
get a great start. Some farmers use un¬ 
cleaned rye for such seeding. This rye 
is alive with weed seed and the entire 
farm becomes plastered. In our own case 
we do not care so much for this since 
most of tLe land is in orchards and we 
cannot help feeling that some kinds of 
weeds make the best of organic matter. 
In a farm where a regular crop rotation 
was followed such dirty rye would make 
no end of trouble. On grain farms there 
is some complaint about vetch. The seed 
is scattered all over the farm and gets 
into the wheat fields. Thus it becomes 
a nuisance owing to the trouble of clean¬ 
ing it out of the grain. Rye gives the 
same trouble on farms where wheat is the 
chief small grain crop. The two grains 
become mixed and lower the quality of 
the wheat. On such farms, rape, clover, 
buckwheat and turnips will pay better. 
In an orchard almost anything that will 
grow above ground, and can be plowed 
under, will pay. There is another value 
to these cover crops, especially when lime 
is used with them. That is the chemical 
action upon the soil when these crops de¬ 
cay under ground. This gives “life” to 
the soil and starts millions of bacteria at 
work. I am not enough of a chemist to 
explain this work so as to make it clear, 
but I know that it goes on and that it 
has value. We may add to this the fact 
that the organic matter in the soil acts to 
hold the moisture and thus prevents the 
hard “baking” which we notice on heavy 
soils in a drought. The cover crop works 
in all these ways and when we think that 
it merely means scattering seed over the 
field to let Nature do the rest we can un¬ 
derstand why its advocates feel sure of 
their ground. 
What Crops. —The man who asks the 
question at the head of this wants me to 
name the best crops in their order. lie 
lives more than 100 miles north of New 
York in the Hudson Valley, and that cuts 
him out of several crops which might do 
well here. What I have to say refers to 
this locality in Northern New Jersey. Do 
not say that the crops I mention must be 
the best for your locality or latitude. I 
do not know about that and you must 
use your own judgment in deciding. I 
put rye first of all in importance. That 
will make our scientific friends smile for 
they can prove that rye has lit Mo manurial 
value. It adds no nitrogen to the soil, 
and is the lowest of all grains in feeding 
value. Granted—yet I repeat my state¬ 
ment. The first thing I think of is 
rye. It is the backbone of our cover 
crops. Rye is the surest thing we have 
for Fall growing. You can seed it on 
the roughest and poorest land—just 
scratch it in—and you are sure to have 
some growth. It is a good feeder and 
has a most remarkable root system. Some¬ 
times in November you see the growth 
above ground and think rye is a fraud. 
Drive a spade into the soil and you will 
be astonished to see how the rye roots 
have filled it with a perfect mass. Ni¬ 
trates can hardly escape such a complete 
trap and the action of this great root 
system upon the soil must be helpful. 
Then rye, somehow, makes the finest 
nurse or protector for other seed crops. 
Farmers who have seeded to grass with 
the various grains will tell you that rye 
for Fall seeding and barley for Spring 
are best. You would think that this 
rank root system would interfere with 
the other crops, but it does not seem to 
July 24, 1915. 
do so. Crimson clover and vetch come 
through the Winter in better shape when 
seeded with rye than with wheat. If you 
want these crops for fodder either green 
or dry, the wheat and vetch will be better 
because wheat is a softer and better feed 
but for a manurial crop rye is a better 
companion for other crops. Rye starts 
growing earlier in Spring and grows rap¬ 
idly. It is a great help in drying out wet 
soil, and for that reason it is dangerous 
to let it grow too long in a dry time, for 
it sucks the moisture out of the soil like a 
boy at the end of a straw. Where soil 
must be plowed for some early crop rye 
is the best grain because it makes the 
earliest growth and will give most or¬ 
ganic matter by early April. For dozens 
of good reasons I put rye at the head— 
but the seed must be clean and it would 
not be wise to use it on farms where 
wheat is the standard grain. H. w. c. 
Trees Killed by Wire. 
You are publishing a grand paper, just 
what the farmer needs. Years ago we 
bought a lot of fruit trees from a New 
York firm. They grew to maturity and 
died with their first crop. They were 
not intended to grow. A wire was in the 
roots. I do not know whether a fraud 
could be perpetrated now of the same 
kind. M. E. l. 
Ohio. 
We do not understand what is meant 
by this. There are a good many cases 
vhere the wire which holds the label is 
not removed from the little tree. As the 
trunk of the tree grows this wire of 
course does not stretch, and it finally cuts 
through the bark and kills the tree. In 
all the cases we have examined this in¬ 
jury was due to the failure of the planter 
to cut off the wire. We have seen no 
evidence to show that such a wire was 
purposely put around the trunk or root 
to kill the tree. If anyone can present 
evidence to show this has been done we 
would like to have it, but we do not be¬ 
lieve nurserymen would attempt such 
work when it could be so easily detected. 
“Traded your motorboat for an aero¬ 
plane. eh? What’s the idea?” “Well, 
there's this about an aeroplane—even if 
the engine does break down, you’re bound 
to land somewhere.” 
Before You Sow 
Your Winter Wheat 
% 
—read this: 
“If in some way I could manage the affairs of men for one 
year; if in some way the land and the people were mine and I 
could fix the land and control the thoughts and actions of the 
folks, here’s what I would do: I’d put back into the cold, hard, 
worn-out soils, the leaves and the roots and the hundreds of 
kinds of vegetable growths that have been farmed out in the 
past century. When this was done I would have a rich soil. 
Then on that soil I would put tillers, . . . and enable 
them to know that the soil is a storehouse of plant food and 
that they can’t continually take crops out of it and put little 
or nothing back.”—R. A. Hayne, in National Stockman and 
Farmer , June 26th, 1915. 
Although you can’t put back the vegetation and crops of 
the past century, you can put into your soil 
E. Frank Coe Fertilizers 
(The Business Farmers' Standard for over 57 years) 
There is one more thing that you should do before you sow 
your winter wheat. You ought to read “Winter Wheat 
Production,” a practical pamphlet on profitable wheat growing 
by a practical and progressive expert. A copy is yours for 
the asking, without charge, of course. Send a postal card to¬ 
day. This is an opportunity to make one cent earn you in¬ 
creased profits of many dollars. 
THE COE-MORTIMER COMPANY 
51 CHAMBERS ST., NEW YORK CITY 
