The Nevada County picayune. (Prescott, Ark.) 190?-current, 1915-10-15
CLASSES OF FORAGE CROPS

Any vegetable matter fresh or cured
eaten by live stock such as hay, grain.
fodder. or silage is included in the
class of forage and those crops grown
as forage crops. Whenever a cereal
crop is grown for hay, pasture, or sill
age 1t too is called a forage crop.
Every farm maintains a few head OF
live stock for which 1t Is necessary
to provide feed. The most successful
men are growing the feed at home to
avoid the necessity of buying.
One-half of the total acreage of
American forage plants consists of IL
notify and clovers, but the greatest
amount OF roughage is produced from
corn. Over five million acres Of alfal-
IA are now being grown in the United
States Much wheat. oats. rye. millet,
sorghum and Sudan grass are grown
for rough forage. Cow peas, soy beans,
the clovers, and many tame grasses
such as Bermuda. orchard grass, red
top, and crab grass are grown to a
considerable extent for hay and pas
ture. In addition to all of the above
there are more than seventeen million
acres left to wild grasses. Forage in
the United States exceeds in value
that OF all other crops.
Legumes. while not grown so ex.
tensiyely as grasses, are more valua-
BILE, pound for pound, because they al
most uniformly have higher protein
or flesh forming content than other
crops. or more than one hundred le-
gumes comparatively few are of agri-
cultural value in Arkansas.
The grasses are either annual like
sorghum, millet, or Sudan grass, or
perennial like orchard grass, Bermr-
da, or Johnson grass. The roots of
grasses are very small and usually
live for only one season. AS compared
with other crops grass seeds do not
have high terminating power.
The class OF forage crops known as
legumes includes peas, beans. alfalfa,
clovers, vetches, and many others.
This forms a most important agricul-
tural class of plants in that most Of
its members have the ability to use
free nitrogen taken from the atmos.
phere by the aid of certain bacteria
that forms nodules on the roots Very
few other plants and none of agricul-
tural value in Arkansas have this
ability These facts have been known
only for comparatively short time.
nat the nodules on the roots OF
these plants contained bacteria was
not discovered until 1866, and it was
not until 1887 that Hellriegel demon
strated that leguminous plants could
utilize atmospheric nitrogen by aid of
these bacteria in the root nodules. It
was known even before Christ that
the growing of certain legumes help
ed succeeding crops, but the reason
was not known until the recent dis
coveries.
The organism causing the nodules
on leguminous plants occurs in many
different forms because in only few
instances has 1t seemed possible to
inoculate one crop with the organ
isms from another. According to Pi-
per the only proven case OF this Is
that OF alfalfa and sweet clover, either
of which can be inoculated with the
organisms from the other.
The root nodules on vareus lie.
gumes vary widely in size, shape and
abundance. On most cloyers they
are small, globular and oftentimes
club shaped On alfalfa they are
usually some longer and oftentimes
more branched On vetches they are
very much branched and often fan
shaped. On cowpeas, peanuts, and
most beans they are irregularly glob-
uar and solid. The soy bean nodules
are also globular. but have raised
ridges on the surface. Ii Is said that
the velvet bean sometimes has no
dulles as large as baseball. Some OF
the leguminous crops of Arkansas, al
talfa for example, are dependent upon
the presence of the nodule organisms
for their successful growth While
other legumes will do well on fertile
soils without the presence of the or
ganisms, experiments show the pres
ence OF the organism is beneficial to
tho crop.
Many people have the mistaken idea
that leguminous plants gather nitro
gen through their leaves. The bac-
teria In the nodules on the roots real
ly take their nitrogen from the air
which occupies the spaces between the
seo particles.