the flowering stage should be plowed into the ground.  Naturally, annual legumes, such as peas and beans, should be used for this purpose.  The crop thus plowed under contains much nitrogen, which is gradually changed into a form suitable for plant assimilation.  In addition, the acid substances produced in the decay of the plants tend to liberate the insoluble plant-foods and the organic matter is finally changed into humus.  In order to maintain a proper supply of nitrogen in the soil the dry-farmer will probably soon find himself obliged to grow, every five years or oftener, a crop of legumes to be plowed under.

Non-leguminous crops may also be plowed under for the purpose of adding organic matter and humus to the soil, though this has little advantage over the present method of heading the grain and plowing under the high stubble.  The header system should be generally adopted on wheat dry-farms.  On farms where corn is the chief crop, perhaps more importance needs to be given to the supply of organic matter and humus than on wheat farms.  The occasional plowing under of leguminous crops would he the most satisfactory method.  The persistent application of the proper cultural methods of dry-farming will set free the most important plant-foods, and on well-cultivated farms nitrogen is the only element likely to be absent in serious amounts.

The rotation of crops on dry-farms is usually advocated in districts like the Great Plains area, where the annual rainfall is over fifteen inches and the major part of the precipitation comes in spring and summer.  The various rotations ordinarily include one or more crops of small grains, a hoed crop like corn or potatoes, a leguminous crop, and sometimes a fallow year.  The leguminous crop is grown to secure a fresh supply of nitrogen; the hoed crop, to enable the air and sunshine to act thoroughly on the soil grains and to liberate plant-food, such as potash and phosphoric acid; and the grain crops to take up plant-food not reached by the root systems of the other plants.  The subject of proper rotation of crops has always been a difficult one, and very little information exists on it as practiced on dry-farms.  Chilcott has done considerable work on rotations in the Great Plains district, hut he frankly admits that many years of trial will he necessary for the elucidation of trustworthy principles.  Some of the best rotations found by Chilcott up to the present are:—­

Corn—­Wheat—­Oats
Barley—­Oats—­Corn
Fallow—­Wheat—­Oats

Rosen states that rotation is very commonly practiced in the dry sections of southern Russia, usually including an occasional Summer fallow.  As a type of an eight-year rotation practiced at the Poltava Station, the following is given:  (1) Summer tilled and manured; (2) winter wheat; (3) hoed crop; (4) spring wheat; (5) summer fallow; (6) winter rye; (7) buckwheat or an annual legume; (8) oats.  This rotation, it may be observed, includes the grain crop, hoed crop, legume, and fallow every four years.