The Brinkley argus., 1916-04-21
CLASSES OF FORAGE CROPS.

l. GLASSES 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 primarily for that purpose are known as forage crops. Whenever cereal crop is grown for hay, pasture, or sill. age 1t too Is called 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 ti- mothy 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 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- tensively as grasses, are more valua- ble, pound for pound, because they al- most uniformly have higher protein or flesh forming content than other crops Of 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, Bermp- 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 germinating 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 a comparatively short time. That 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 it 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 various le gumes vary widely in size, shape and abundance. On most clovers they are small, globular and oftentimes club shaped. On alfalfa they are usually some longer and oftentimes more hranched. On vetches they are very much branched and often fan shaped. On cowpeas, peanuts, and most beans they are irregularly glob- ular and solid. The soy bean nodules are also globuiar, but have raised ridges On the surface. It is said that the velvet bean sometimes has no- dules as large as baseball. Some of the leguminous crops of Arkansas, al falfa 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 | the 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. l ly take their nitrogen from the air which occupies the spaces between the | soil particles.