In the Michigan Experiment Station report for 1895 it is stated 

 that the flat pea had grown with fair success for several years, but 

 the feeding tests showed that sheep and cows had a decided distaste 

 for the forage. Sheep confined on flat-pea pasture lost weight, and 

 cows fed in stable lost weight and diminished in production of milk 

 and butter-fat when either green or ensiled flat- pea fodder was fed 

 as a part of the ration. 



CONCLUSION. 



In localities where it will pay to go to considerable trouble in order 

 to establish a growth of some forage plant, as in some of the sandy 

 and arid regions of the West, especially in limestone and chalky 

 regions of the Southwest, flat pea may be considered as having some 

 possible value; but where other crops can be grown, such as Indian 

 corn, the sorghums, wheat, rye, barley, clovers, or the ordinary 

 tame grasses, it will not pay to cultivate this fodder plant. The 

 deeply penetrating, tenacious roots and perennial habit exclude this 

 plant from ordinary use in rotation. 



Finally, it must be borne in mind that this plant, naturally grow- 

 ing upon sterile ground, was improved by continual transplanting to 

 better soil. If sown upon poor soil, is there no danger that it will 

 revert to its original state, regaining the injurious qualities lost in 

 the course of improvement ? The method of improvement — by con- 

 tinual transplanting to better soil — makes the probability of rever- 

 sion great. Indeed, those who advertise the plant most extensively 

 admit that many who raise seed for sale have, on account of careless 

 cultivation, placed on the market seed of inferior or unimproved 

 forms. Unless this can be stopped it is to be feared that the result 

 will l)e the entire reversion of the imi)roved variety. 



F. Lamson-Scribner, 



Agrostologist. 

 Approved : 



James Wilson, 



Secretari/ of AgrkuUiire. 



Washington, D. C, April 38, 1899. 



