as the best red-clover hay, and there is no good reason why the South- 

 ern farmers and planters should buy the Northern-grown article for 

 their working stock or for fattening their cattle. Every ton of hay 

 used on the estate should be grown there. Another method of cur- 

 ing hay is to stack the vines in a pen or rack of rails or poles so 

 arranged as to allow the air to enter every part of the pile. This 

 stacking over poles is the best where the vines are pulled, or where 

 the trailing and creeping sorts are used. The bush varieties are the 

 best for hay, because of the greater ease with which they may be 

 mowed and handled. They also hold their leaves better than the 

 ranker trailing sorts. 



The majority of farmers harvest only enough seed of cowpeas to 

 plant again the next season. The ripe pods are picked by hand and 

 are stored in barrels until needed or are thrashed out by machine or 

 with flails on the barn floor during the winter. Sometimes, if the 

 crop is heavy enough to render it profitable, the vines are run through 

 an ordinary thrashing machine from which the concave and alter- 

 nate teeth of the cylinder have been removed. But a machine breaks 

 and bruises more of the seed than when the pods are first picked off 

 by hand. Fully 95 per cent of the seed placed upon the market is 

 hand picked. The yield per acre varies according to the varieties and 

 the method of cultivation. Eight to twelve bushels is a fair average 

 of the amount that can be obtained when the peas are planted in the 

 corn rows. Sown alone, broadcast or in drills, yields of from twenty 

 to thirty-five and even, in rare cases, fifty bushels are obtained. The 

 Black, Unknown, Red Ripper, Clay, and Calico varieties are all heavy 

 seed bearers. Lady and White Crowder are good for table use and 

 also yield well. The Black-eyed, Red Crowder, and Whip-poor-will 

 or Speckled are very widely cultivated and find ready sale. Those 

 which make the largest growth of vines for green manure, as a win- 

 ter soil mulch, for hay or soiling are the Unknown, Red Ripper, 

 Southdown, and Clay. Whip-poor-will, Black-eyed, White, and Red 

 Crowder ripen in from twelve to fourteen weeks, and hence are 

 adapted to cultivation farther north than the very late, but ranker 

 growing. Unknown, Wonderful, Red Ripper, Black, and Gourd vari- 

 eties. The New England and Lee ripen seed in from six to seven 

 weeks, and hence are the ones to recommend for summer-soiling 

 crops in the upper prairie region of the Mississippi A'^alley or anywhere 

 else that an early maturing cowpea is required. This is one of the 

 species of cultivated plants which is verj" readily modified by change 

 of habitat. Early and late maturing forms may be found of every 

 strain that has been in cultivation for any considerable time. 



