278 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Olf. Doc. 



cause the microbes will not thrive in an acid soil. But the cow pea 

 (leliglits in an acid soil, and is damaged by a. direct application of 

 lime. Of course, in most instances, where the soil does not lack 

 fertility', an aj^plication of lime will restore the conditions which 

 clover needs, but in other cases it may be an advantage to use 

 the pea in building up the soil, for the growth of clover for the 

 oi'gauic matter it furnishes will make the application of lime for 

 the clover more effectual. The south does not need clover, since 

 the southern farmer can, with the pea, accomplish all in a few short 

 weeks that the northern farmer takes two years to do with clover. 

 As a quickly grov^'n source of forage of the finest kind, and of nitro- 

 gen for the soil, there are few plants that can equal the cow pea 

 where it attains its best development. 



Now, as to its place in the agriculture of Pennsylvania and other 

 states in this latitude. There are large sections of the State of 

 Pennsylvania in which I w^ould never advise the farmers to waste 

 time and money in experimenting with the cow pea as a forage and 

 hay-making plant. The elevated mountain country, with the heavy 

 clay soil will present conditions that will alwaj's result in a small 

 growth and an unsatisfactory crop. But all along the southern 

 tier of counties south of the fortieth parallel, from the mountains to 

 the Delaware and in the lower Susquehanna Valley, there are thou- 

 sands of farms where the cow pea can be used as a forage crop to 

 great advantage. Not, as I have said, that it can ever, or ought 

 ever, to supersede clover, but to come in as a supplemental crop 

 to save a legume growth when clover fails, as it often does. Then, 

 too, there are other sections of the State where the pea can be 

 used as a summer pasture to enable the farmer to tide over a 

 drought and save his grass from utter destruction. If pastured 

 before blooming, the pea can be eaten down several times during 

 the summer, and there is no pasture that will give more or better 

 milb. I once pastured down a piece of peas in the Virginia moun- 

 tains three times during one summer. If an early sixty-day pea 

 is used, there is nothing that will make a finer hog pasture in the 

 fall, when the peas are ripe, and the hogs will need little corn to 

 finish them off after being taken from the pea field. Where the 

 conditions of soil and climate are favornble-to a strong growing 

 vinlng variety, like the large Black or the Clay, they will make the 

 finest of hay. The large Black and the Clay from North Carolina 

 seed ripened seed at Cornell some years ago, while seed of the 

 same A'arietie's from the far south failed to ripen, showing the 

 adaptation of the pea to climatic conditions. There is no one point 

 in regard to the cow pea about which there is such a diversity of 

 opinions as the making of the hay. The general opinion in the 

 south is that it is very hard-to cure, and one sees all over the south 



