

cattle. Probably no other kind of silage will i-arry dry cattle and 

 young stock through the winter in such fine appearance as will that 

 made from cowpeas. 



CORN ALONE TOO EXHAUSTING TO THE I>AND. 



Corn alone, as we grow it for the silage in the South, is, perhaps, 

 as nearly a perfect, all round silage crop as is possible to be had, but 

 it is exhausting to the soil. To remedy this objection the effort was 

 made to find some forage plant that would grow well with the corn 

 and, while adding quality and quantity to the yield, would add nitro- 

 gen to the soil. For this purpose tests were made with various 

 legumes and a suitable crop found in the cowpea which adds quantity 

 to the crop, and being a renovater of the soil and a conserver of its 

 fertility, counteracts or counterbalances the ^exhausting effects of the 

 corn on the land. Especially is the (piestion of soil renovation important 

 to the South now, since of late years it has become next to impossible 

 to secure a stand or a good crop of red clover, even on land that once 

 grew enormous yields of that most valuable forage plant. In this 

 agricultural emergency the cowpea has become a boon to a large sec- 

 tion of the South for both hay and silage, and the area in cultivation 

 has widened in Tennessee wonderfully within the last few years. 



Some writers have doubted the advisability of growing cowpeas for 

 ensilage on account of its alleged inferior quality as food. But the 

 writer's experience leads him to believe that if the crop is grown 

 properly, harvested at the right stage of maturity, evenly mixed in 

 the silo with an equal portion of corn, and fed in connection with good 

 hay or other provender, the quality of the combined crop will produce 

 milk and butter of first-class quality, which is well known to be the 

 most severe test that can be applied to any cattle food. The question 

 of the quality of the silage is of much importance, since the hist five 

 years have witnessed a great increase in the number of silos built and 

 used in the South, especially in east Tennessee, and perhaps the 

 greater part of their contents is fed to dairy cattle, a class of stock 

 that demands the best of health-giving food, and whose dairy product 

 must be of unexceptional quality. 



I 



WHIP-POOR-WILL PEA THE BEST. 



Of all the varieties of cowpeas the whip-poor-will has been found 

 the best for silage purposes, because, when planted with corn, it grows 

 rank enough; does not entangle the corn so nuich as the others, and 

 hence damages it less; is the most easily harvested, and in this climate 

 and soil yields more grain and ripens its vine more uniformly than 

 the ranker growers, such as the "Clav," ^'Unknown," "Wonderful,"' 

 and other runners. The ''Whip" pea, strictly speaking, is a bunch 



