weeds improves the land is a fallacious one. They abstract plant food 
from the soil. 
The second crop of Irish potatoes should be planted during this 
month in Virginia, and not later than August in North Carolina. 
Ruta-bagas should be sown during this month, and turnips a little 
later. Turnips are not only good for salad and the table, but are an ex¬ 
cellent ration of cattle. Live stock, of all kind, like human beings, thrive 
best on a variety of foods, and roots should be grown to give this variety. 
Especially where sheep are kept should roots be made a regular farm 
crop. No kind of food during winter will so help the sheep as a daily 
ration of cut roots. The land should be laid off in rows two feet six 
inches apart, so as to permit of cultivation, and the seed drilled in the 
rows at the rate of about two to three pounds to the acre. If it is only 
desired to use turnips as salad and for a pasture, they may be sown broad¬ 
cast on land broken with a harrow only. Turnips may be sown with 
German clover on wheat and oat stubbles, and they will afford grazing 
before the clover, and a crop for salad and the table. 
Make provision for saving the straw and chaff when threshing. These 
are too valuable as food for stock and for bedding for the animals to be 
left in heaps in the field to rot. Stack the straw near the barn. Put the 
chaff into the barn or into rail pens, and cover with straw. When the 
push of the work is over in the crops, cut down all the weeds and briars 
growing around the house and farm buildings, on the roadside and in 
the fence corners. Do this before they seed. 
WORK FOR AUGUST, 
Crimson clover should be sown freely all through the month as the 
season admits. Turnips should be sown freely. They make excellent 
feed for cattle, sheep and hogs, and will afford grazing all the winter. 
Don’t waste time pulling fodder. Careful experiments have been 
made in a number of Southern States, and they all establish the fact that 
it does not pay to pull fodder. When the corn is well glazed, cut it up 
at the root and set it up in shocks not too large, and let the corn and 
fodder cure together. In this way the whole crop is saved at one opera¬ 
tion. The stalks and fodder contain as much nutriment and feeding 
value as the ears, and should be so saved as that this value can be utilized. 
Only by cutting up the corn at the roots can this be done. 
Prepare land for seeding winter oats in September. Many farmers 
are now preparing land for them with the spading or disc harrow. This 
system saves cost of plowing and much time, and is successful where the 
land has been well and deeply plowed for the previous crop. 
WORK FOR SEPTEMBER. 
Winter oats, to make the best return, should be sown in September. 
Many failures are due to too late seeding. If there is a fair probability 
of giving this crop a top dressing of farmyard manure during the winter, 
we would not advise the use of any commercial fertilizer when seeding, 
as the manure will give better results. 
One bushel of oats with ten pounds of German clover to the acre 
will give good results for good grazing and a heavy forage crop, and 
which, if not needed for feeding green, will make excellent hay, and be 
43 
