No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AdRICULTUKE. 275 



Lhc liuiiuis to his soil aucl at the suuie time supylyiug the needed 

 nitrogen whUc growing- crops to feed his stock with the most expen- 

 sive part of the ration, the protein, and at Ihe same time give him 

 snpplies of the richest manure. 



The great forage and fi rtilizing crop of the Middle and Northern 

 states is, and probablv al\Nays will be, red clover. It is a plant well 

 adapted to the climatic conditions in these states, and fits into the 

 usual rotation of crops better than anything that could be adopted 

 in his place. In the South the case is very ditferent. From Virginia 

 southward clover succeeds only in the mountains and Upper Pied- 

 mont sections and on a clay soil. In the warm, sandy soils, common 

 in the cotton belt, it is universally a failure. What I have to say, 

 therefore, in regard to the southern pea does not mean that it ever 

 should be adopted in the Middle states as a substitute for clover 

 where clover can be grown well. My first experience with the cow 

 pea was in a beautiful limestone valley in Northern Maryland but 

 a few miles south of the Pennsylvania line. Its luxuriant growth 

 there, and the large amount of forage of the finest kind made 

 from it, caused me to believe that in certain conditions the plant 

 would become valuable far north of where it had generally been 

 grown. Going then to the improvement of a large farm in upper 

 Virginia right at the foot of the Blue Ridge, I again tried the cow 

 pea with the most gratifying success. One spring, having lost my 

 clover over a large field of wheat through an untimely frost when 

 it was germinating, I determined not to resow the clover so late 

 in the season, but to use the cow pea after the wheat had been 

 harvested. This was done, and the r(isult w'as the heaviest crop of 

 peas I had ever seen. I then began the study of the curing of the 

 crop as hay, and 1 soon found that a modification of the method I 

 had been using in the curing of clover hay was equally good for the 

 pea vines, and that the only difference was that the peas needed to 

 remain outside longer than the clover. And it is one great ad- 

 vantage which the pea has over clover that it is very little injured 

 by rain on it while curing. I found that my pea vine hay was a 

 very superior article for my cow'S, and in fact was better than 

 clover hay, for I found that through its aid I could dispense with the 

 purchased bran that I had been using largely. Since that time 

 a number of the Experiment Stations have taken up the same in- 

 vestigation, and have all arrived at the same conclusion I reached 

 over fifteen years ago, that with the cow pea we can grow the 

 needed protein for the cattle ration while growing a plant that helps 

 the soil on which it is grown. 



When I moved further south, I was surprised to see how little 

 attention was being paid to the cow pea as a forage crop and soil 



