The Prescott daily news., 1916-08-16
$500 More a Year for the Average
 Southern Farmer.
Have a Winter Cover Crop to Plow Under for the Corn Crop.
 By Prof. w. F. Massey.

The value of any farm rotation comes from the amount of humus added to the soil through the grow ing and using of the legume crops. The increase of this organic decay in the soil should be the leading aim in any rotation, for it is through this that we get greater production per acre of the sales crops, and not only this, but through the great moisture retaining character of this vegetable decay we get greater results for the fertilizers used.
 Then, too, on all upland soils and clay loans this decay aids greatly in releasing the potash that abounds in such soils, and relieves the farmer from any necessity for the buying of potash. And added to these advant- ages, the legumes furnish us the cost ly nitrogen free of cost, and the good farmer is relieved of spending money for what he can get free.
 Clover the First of All Corn Fertil- izers.
 am asked hundreds of times what fertilizer I would advise to make the corn crop. 1 always reply that the best and cheapest fertilizer 1 know for the corn crop is a good sod of crimson clover disked down when m bloom and turned under. Of course you can make corn with the use of complete commercial fertilizers, but you cannot make corn cheaply in that way. One of the best farmers in the South, man who has grown rich in building up an old rundown planta- ton, and who now makes about 1000 bushels of corn annually. says that he makes corn at actual cost of II cents a hushel. But he always has a heavy sod to turn for the crop.
 This winter cover of crimson clover has additional value in the saving of what would be lost in the winter rains. We have most of the winter an open soil, and the nitrates are cas- fly washed out in the winter rains But if there is growing crop on the land, these fieeting ntrates will be used by the plants and kept from be- ing lost to the soil, and can be re- turned to the soil in the spring. Then the clover crop relieves the farmer of the need to buy a complete fertilizer, and only demands that it may be help ed by liberal use of some carrier of phosphorus. And the more of this nitrogen-fixing and humus-making material we get into the soil the more we can save in the purchase of phosphorus. With an abundance of vegetable matter decaying in the soil we can use profitably the raw phoS- phate rock at less than half the cost of acid phosphate.
 When this organic matter, whether clover or peas, is buried in the soil the different forms of bacteria get busy. One form breaks down the or ganic matter and releases ammonia. Another form feeds on ammonia ant makes nitrous acid A third form con verts this into nitric acid, and this not only combines with any base in the soil and forms a nitrate, but it makes the phospheric acid in the rock soluble and available to plants, I-
 And there is always as much mon- ey to be made in saving expense as Tn increasing crops regardless of cost What we need to learn is economy m production and not merely making crops by expensive methods. Bare land in winter is a source of loss. A green cover crop is a preventive or less and means for increasing the productivity of the soil.
 One farmer wrote me some time ago saving that he had a heavy growth or peas and crab grass on the land, ana asked would not that make sultlclent winter cover. I told him that the growth of peas and grass would be ot great value turned under into the soll' | but it would not make real winter cover, because the plants would De dead and would simply make a mulch of organic matter on the soil, and the nitrates from them and the soil too would be washing away because there