I
Thursday, October 26, 1911.
THE CAROLINA UNION FARMER
-m-
AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT
^iied by C. E. CLARK
Green Manuring No. 12.
Cow Peas.
Who has not heard of the cow
Pta as a hay making and a soil im
proving plant? And, who has not
been let to believe that one-third or
of the nitrogen and other
plant food elements found in this
plant at maturity, are left in the
roots and stubble after the crop is
harvested and cured for hay—that
^3 to say—out of every hundred
pounds of nitrogen, etc., found in
^he pea crop at maturity, 33 1-3 lbs.
the roots and stubble ?
This was our best information up
1-0 a short time ago and even now
some of our best agricultural ad-
'^isers insist on proverbial third of
^he nitrogen, etc., being left in the
underground portion of the plant.
Tike the old idea of the scouring of
l^he soil on well drained land, some
Uian seems to have guessed at the
^uiount of nitrogen, etc., left in the
^oots and stubble and hastened to
^ush his intention into print.
Now a ton of cured peas has, in
^he whole plant about, 40 pounds of
nitrogen. If one-third of this
uuiount were in the roots and stub
ble we would have left on the soil
uud in the soil about 14 pounds of
Available nitrogen per acre in case
Ihe acre produced a ton of cowpea
This amount of nitrogen is
^^ual to that furnished by 700
Pounds of an 8-2-2 fertilizer, a
Pretty heavy application for most
farm crops. This seemed to be
^uther weighty argument in favor
“^f cutting the vines, feeding them
fo live stock, and putting the ma
nure back on the land regardless of
fbe fact that the manure from a ton
^f cow pea hay fed to cattle will
Cover—well, what part of the acre
'vill it cover?
Our farmers have been acting on
Ibis advice for a number of years in
fbe face of the daily decreasing
fertility of their lands under this
system. Mr. W, A. Marsh, of
Ilnion county took this advice liter
ally. sowed oats, cut and removed"
fbcm, sowed cowpeas on the oat
stubble and cut these for hay when
^nature. This practice was con
tinued till his land would not pro
^Ucc a crop even of peas. Examples
Could be multiplied where the pea
^’’C'p has been removed year after
year with disasterous results. In
it now seems that the surest
’^•cthod of depleting the fertility of
be soil is to remove a crop of cow
pea vines from it every year for a
ew years in succession.
The real explanation of this phe
bomenon has finally been discover-
*• In an exhaustive series of tests
^bd experiments conducted by
*^umbcr of our best experiment
Elutions it has been found that the
^Uiount of nitrogen, etc., left in the
oots and stubble of the cowpea
3lant is not one-third, but about
one-tenth of that found in the
whole plant. Here seems to be one
of the leading factors in the expla
nation of the running down of
average soils by the annual removal
of the pea crop.. Another, and,
oerhaps the leading factor, is that
all the organic matter is removed
from the soil for a series of years
this method and thus all bacte
rial life is driven from the land
which is thereby rendered dead.
These dead soils are not necessarily
rubbed of their mineral plant foods,
lowever, as will be demonstrated
3y plowing down a cow pea crop or
a good crop of rye for a year or two
in succession.
One ton of green cow pea vines
contains about 5.5 pounds of ni
trogen; 2 pounds of phosphate;
and 6 pounds of potash. It is an
easy matter, on average soil, to get
a growth of 12 tons of some one of
the rank growing varieties per
acre, which will cure up into thrce
tons of hay.
Composition of Green Cozv Pea
Compared With Composition of
Fresh Cow and Horse Manure.
Green Cow Pea Vines, nitrogen
5.4, phospijiate 2.0, potash 6.2.
Fresh cow manure, nitrogen 7.6,
phosphate 1.6, potash 7.3,
Fresh horse manure, nitrogen
8.7, phosphate 1.9, potash 7.3.
With this yield per acre there
would be produced on a ten acre
field 120 tons of green pea vines
which, if cut to pieces with a sharp
disc harrow, plowed under, and
thoroughly incorporated with the
whole soil stratum, would add to
tliis field about 650 pounds of ni
trogen and render available 240
pounds of phosphate and about 750
potmds of potash.
By thus using the pea crop as
green manure the farmers gets
from the air as much nitrogen in
the first ten inches of the soil of his
Ic-acre field as he would get from
86 tons of manure or from 15 tons
of an 8-2-2 fertilizer. He gets as
much phosphate rendered avail
able to the succeeding crop as he
would get from 150 tons of manure
or from i 1-2 tons of an 8-2-2 fer
tilizer. The potash thus rendered
available is equal to that obtained
from over 100 tons of manure or
from nearly 19 tons of an 8-2-2 fer
tilizer. And the humus obtained
from this amount of vegetable mat
ter turned into the soil will be suffi
cient to feed bacterial life from
years to come and will add im
mensely to mechanical conditions
and water holding capacity of the
land.
The results of having lost sight
of the fact that the humus or or
ganic matter content of the soil is
the basis of all successful farming
have been appalling not only in
North Carolina but over the whole
South.o Can we afford to reduce
the vitality of our lands still fur
ther and hope to retain ownership
ef them? When we have finished
this series of articles on feasible
methods of soil improvement we
expect to take up and outline a con
dition that is even now settling
down like a pall over the farmers
of North Carolina,
J. L. BURGESS,
N, C. Department of Agriculture.
FOR SALE—125 acres farm, 30
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J. H. HENLEY, Sanford, N. C.
500 LESSONS IN BUSINESS
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TERRA COTTA PIPE, WELL TUBING, FARM
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PHONE 370
Charlotte. N. C.
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