For years the land has grown nothing but weeds.
Your soil needs organic matter which would make it more easy of
cultivation, more retentive of moisture, and in every way better suited
to the growth of plants. Liberal applications of stable manure would
produce best effects. No commercial fertilizer would begin to be so
desirable. If you can dig into the soil large amounts of weeds or other
vegetable waste material, you would be proceeding along the same line,
but stable manure is better on account of its greater fertilizing
content. You ought to be thankful that the soil has spunk enough to grow
weeds. The Immanent Creator is still doing the best he can to help you
out; take a hand yourself on the same line.
Two Legumes in a Year.
I have land on which I wish to plant to fruits, and I wish to build up
the soil all I can, by planting cover crops and plowing under. What
would be the best to plant this fall, to be plowed under next spring,
and to plant again next spring to plow under in the fall? I will not be
able to plant any trees before next fall or the following spring.
Get in vetches as soon as the ground is in shape in the fall. Plow them
under early in the spring and close the covering and compact the green
stuff by running a straight disk over the ground after plowing. This
will help decay and save moisture. Follow with cow peas as soon as you
are out of the frost, disking in the seed so as not to disturb the stuff
previously covered in.
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