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Thursday, February 4, 2021

Sow Spring Oats for Hay, Says W.H. Barton, Feb. 3, 1921

By W.H. Barton

Of course you will not plant your usual cotton acreage in 1921. Why not sow spring oats on part of this acreage and make hay for summer use or for use the entire year? Oat hay is as good as No. 1 Timothy, and can be produced at far less cost than a purchased supply of the latter. On medium to good land, for hay sow 2 to 3 bushels of oats per acre and apply 100 pounds nitrate of soda as an early spring dressing and cut for hay just about the time the oats are in full bloom or in the milk to dough stage. Both the quality and the yield per acre will be increased by sowing one bushel per acre of Canada Field Peas with the oats. However unless your land has successfully grown vetch or Canada Field Peas before, it will be necessary to inoculate the peas; which may be done as follows: From soil where vetch has successfully grown or from your old garden where English Peas have been successfully produced for years, remove the first inch of top soil and shovel up one bushel of soil for each bushel of peas to be sown. Thereby dampen the peas with a solution of 1-2 and 1-2 molasses and water and all the above mentioned soil, making a mixture of soil and peas and in the proportions of 1-2 and 1-2 and sow and immediately cover with drag, weeder, drag harrow, or brush. This crop may be followed by sorghum and peas for hay, or sorghum alone for hay. If sorghum alone be sown thickly, on medium soil a grain harvester may be used to harvest in bundles which may be shocked much as wheat or oats, and much labor and expense be thus saved.

This crop in turn may be followed in early fall by Harig Vetch and Rye as a cover crop to be turned the following spring for Corn and Velvet Beans.

From the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, Richmond County, Thursday afternoon, Feb. 3, 1921

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