Fig. 235. Vetch
Vetch needs a fine well-compacted seed-bed, but it is often sowed with good results on stubble lands and between cotton and corn rows, where it is covered by a cultivator or a weeder.
The seeds of the vetch are costly and are brought chiefly from Germany, where this crop is much prized. The pods ripen so irregularly that they have to be picked by hand.
In northern climates early spring sowing is found most satisfactory. In southern climates the seeding is best done in the late summer or early fall. As the vetch vines have a tendency to trail on the ground, it is wisest to plant with the vetch some crop like oats, barley, rye, or wheat. These plants will support the vetch and keep its vines from being injured by falling on the ground. Do not use rye with vetch in the South. It ripens too early to be of much assistance. If sowed with oats the seeding should be at the rate of about twenty or thirty pounds of vetch and about one and a half or two bushels of oats to the acre. Vetch is covered in the same way as wheat and rye.
Few crops enrich soil more rapidly than vetch if the whole plant is turned in. It of course adds nitrogen to the soil and at the same time supplies the soil with a large amount of organic matter to decay and change to humus. As the crop grows during the winter, it makes an excellent cover to prevent washing. Many orchard-growers of the Northwest find vetch the best winter crop for the orchards as well as for the fields.
Soy, or Soja, Bean. In China and Japan the soy bean is grown largely as food for man. In the United States it is used as a forage plant and as a soil-improver. It bids fair to become one of the most popular of the legumes. Like the cowpea, this bean is at home only in a warm climate. Some of the early-ripening varieties have, however, been planted with fair success in cold climates.
While there are a large number of varieties of the soy bean, only about a dozen are commonly grown. They differ mainly in the color, size, and shape of the seeds, and in the time needed for ripening. Some of the varieties are more hairy than others.
Soy beans may take many places in good crop-rotations, but they are unusually valuable in short rotations with small grains. The grains can be cut in time for the beans to follow them, and in turn the beans can be harvested in the early fall and make way for another grain crop.
It should always be remembered that soy beans will not thrive unless the land on which they are to grow is already supplied, or is supplied at the time of sowing, with bean bacteria.