964 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Part I. 
Cover Crops. —This is the time for de¬ 
ciding about cover cropping. The seed 
must go into the corn soon if it is to have 
a fair start. In our section this will be 
an ideal season for cover crops, since the 
soil is full of moisture—enough for the 
corn and for the clover and rye. In spite 
i>f all we have said about it people still 
come asking what a cover crop is and 
how it is seeded. So we give here the 
following elementary primer talk. It 
will be an old story to most of you, but 
every question has been asked a dozen 
times. 
What is a “cover crop?” 
Some living crop like grain, clover, tur¬ 
nips, vetch, etc., which will cover the 
ground and grow during Fall and early 
Winter. 
What is the object of it? 
The cover crop prevents washing of 
the soil; it saves the nitrates which 
would otherwise be washed out of the 
land the clover or vetch will add some 
nitrogen from the air, and the cover crop 
will give a great mass of organic matter 
to be plowed under next Spring. 
Would not weeds do as well? Our 
corn fields are full of them this year. 
No, for most of the weeds are killed by 
frost. The loss of nitrates goes on at all 
times through Fall and Winter, except 
when the soil is frozen .solid. The cover 
crop is often a weed killer when seeded 
thickly. 
Is a cover crop plowed under in Spring 
equal to a coat of manure? 
It depends on the crop and the way 
you handle it. Rye and turnips alone 
would not be, but clover or vetch if well 
handled would fully take the place of 
manure. 
What do you mean by “properly 
handled ?” 
Plowed under when about in bloom, 
with a small lot of manure with it and 
lime haiTowed in. 
Why use any manure if the cover crop 
is equal to it? 
The manure contains certain bacteria 
which act to break up the organic mat¬ 
ter I'apidly. These bacteria are not al¬ 
ways found in the soil. The use of a 
small amount of manure will bring in 
these bacteria. They spread and work 
up the cover crop. That is why we ad¬ 
vise a little manure on sod or cover 
crops because it starts up a quicker de¬ 
cay. A little lime spread after plowing 
and harrowed in will help. 
If all this is true why do farmers not 
use this plan? 
Many of them do. We could show you 
hundreds of farms where cover crops 
take place of manure and hundreds of 
others where this system makes the 
manure go twice as far as it did before. 
On most corn land a cover crop will save 
somewhere near 60 pounds of nitrogen to 
the acre. That is equal to the nitrogen 
in nearly eight tons of manure. In ad¬ 
dition to this we have the nitrogen taken 
from the air by clover or vetch. 
But we need something besides nitro¬ 
gen. 
True, there must be potash and phos¬ 
phate. The great mass of organic matter 
decaying in the soil makes some of these 
minerals available and certain crops, like 
rape or turnips, are able to take up forms 
of phosphorus which other crops cannot 
utilize. Thus they help with this but 
the scientific way to use cover crops is to 
fertilize them with potash and phosphoric 
acid and save nitrogen. 
Then you claim that I can use these 
crops in my corn field, let them alone 
until Spring, plow them under, use acid 
phosphate and potash, and have the bene¬ 
fit of 10 loads of manure per acre, all 
hauled and spread for me? 
Exactly. Thousands of farmei*s have 
done that very thing. Thousands more 
are in debt and trouble because they have 
been sending the life of their corn fields 
down through the streams to the ocean 
instead of using cover crops at home to 
hold that life in the soil. 
What seeds do you use? 
It will depend on where you live, how 
early you can seed, the kind of soil, the 
price of seed and some other things. I 
like a combination including some grain. 
A legume like clover or vetch, and, if 
early enough, turnips. 
What is the best grain? 
Rye. This tough and hardy grain will 
start under almost any conditions if you 
cover the seed. It has a great root growth 
and fills the soil, thus saving the nitrates 
and providing a great quantity of organic 
matter. Rye gives good protection to the 
clover, and makes a rapid growth in 
Spring. It grows so fast that it sucks 
the water out of naturally wet ground 
and dries it for working. 
What about wheat? 
Not so well suited to cover cropping as 
rye. It is not so tough and hardy, and 
requires finer preparation of the soil. It 
is more likely to winter-kill with us, does 
not make so sturdy a root growth and 
does not give so much to plow under. 
Wheat is a far better fodder or hay crop 
than rye. Many dairymen want the 
cover crop for Spring pasture or for cut¬ 
ting as green fodder. Wheat is more sat¬ 
isfactory than rye for this purpose. An¬ 
other trouble with rye is that if there is 
a farm rotation including wheat the rye 
will work from the cover crop into the 
wheat fields and make trouble from the 
mixed grains. 
RURAL I 
What about the other small grains? 
They are all in use. In some cases 
farmers do not want the crop to live over 
Winter, and thus they cut out rye and 
wheat. Buckwheat is good. Barley is 
often used. Barley makes the best Fall 
hay of any of the small grains. We have 
seeded barley and clover in the com in 
August, cut nearly a ton of hay to the 
acre in early October, and then had a 
clover crop to plow under in Spring. We 
have mixed barley and rye together for 
this kind of seeding, cut the barley in 
late September, and had the rye come on 
later and make a good crop. In the 
South they have a variety of Winter or 
turf oats which may be seeded like our 
Fall grains, so as to live through the 
Winter. With us it made a very heavy 
growth during the Fall, but died in Win¬ 
ter though I have reports from some 
Northern farmers who say it lives over 
and makes a good crop. I would not rec¬ 
ommend these Winter oats and after try¬ 
ing many combinations we stick to rye 
as a cover crop. 
What do you mean by “legumes”? 
Pod-bearing plants, or those which 
carry their seeds in pods—large or small. 
In plants like beans or peas, vetch or pea¬ 
nuts, these pods are very evident but in 
the clovers or Alfalfa the pods are very 
much smaller, but still are present. 
These pod plants have the power to take 
nitrogen from the air through the work 
of little bacteria which cluster on their 
roots. I would by all means use one or 
more of these legumes in a cover crop in 
EW.YORKER 
order to increase •‘he amount of nitrogen. 
The legume plants also decay more rap¬ 
idly, when in the soil, than rye and other 
grain plants, but the chief reason for 
using them is that they add nitrogen by 
taking it out of the air. 
What legumes shall I use in a cover 
crop? 
It depends on where you live the kind 
of soil you have, and what ycu want. 
For a legume which is to live over Win¬ 
ter in our latitude I prefer Alsike clover 
or Winter vetch. After many years of 
use in various soils and climates it stands 
to reason that these various legumes have 
become specially adapted to certain con¬ 
ditions and will do best when these con¬ 
ditions are worked out. 
Give us an illustration of that. 
Take the cowpea and the peanut and 
the Canada field pea. The former are 
warm weather plants. They do best at 
the South where, in the warm sun and 
soil, they make a wonderful growth. The 
cow pea is a wonder for a Summer and 
Fall cover crop, but is killed by frost. 
On the other hand, the Canada pea is a 
cool weather crop, and it soon fades away 
when hot weather comes. You can seed it 
with oats and get a good crop, or you can 
seed it with barley in the late Summer 
and get another fair yield. Seed cow 
peas at these times and they will shiver 
and faint like a Cuban or a Brazilian put 
into a lumber camp at Christmas. Sriains 
of cow peas, better fitted to endure our 
cooler weather, are being developed, and 
strains of Canada peas better suited to 
August 11, 1917. 
hot climates, are coming, but in general 
the cow pea is best adapted to the coun¬ 
try south of Philadelphia. 
Is it the same with clover? 
Yes. If I lived south of Philadelphia 
I should use Crimson clover as the best 
cover crop I could find. In that milder 
climate this clover is a wonder, and will 
give a remarkable growth when seeded in 
the corn. I have tried it year after year. 
It grows well during the Fall, but is 
usually thrown out of the soil in March. 
There is but a straggling growth left to 
plow under. It is not well suited to our 
climate, and while some Northern farm¬ 
ers praise it as a cover crop, I would not 
give general advice to se^ it north of 
Trenton, N. J. I prefer Alsike clover. 
Why, you seem to be fond of this little 
clover? , 
I am. I think it is surer to live with 
us than any other clover we have. In 
the time between seeding in August and 
plowing under in Spring I think it will 
make a lai-ger growth than Red> and is 
much surer of making a “catch.” Our 
land is hard, wet and inclined to be sour. 
Nature seems to have prepared the Al¬ 
sike to meet these conditions. I have 
never failed to obtain at least a fair catch 
of Alsike. In the somewhat rough and 
hurried seeding of cover crops the small 
Alsike seed is easily covered and it 
sprouts quickly. I know there is some 
prejudice against Alsike on account of its 
size, but it suits me better than any 
other clover as a cover crop. H. w. 0. 
(HANDLER SIX 
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