37 



wet weather is very satisfactory, thoimli the first cost 

 is considerable. By cutting the crop little at a time and 

 at inteiwals of a week or more, the hay caps may be 

 repeatedly used, and a few dozen caps may thus serye 

 in the curing of a considerable area of cowpeas. 



Additional experimental vrork in curing peayine hay 

 is planned. 



Composition of the Different Parts of the Cowpea 



Plant. 



To obtain data as the relatiye yalue of leayes, stems, 

 and other parts of the plant, both as food and as ferti- 

 lizers, samples were taken of six of the yarieties grown 

 in 3J:-inch drills in the yariety test of 1899. These plants 

 had been sown in drills on June 23, so that when sam- 

 ples were taken September 12 they had been growing 

 not quite three months, and in some yarieties none of 

 the pods had colored. The roots were dug out to a 

 depth of six inches, Ayhich depth seemed to contain all 

 the larger roots and nearly all of the smaller ones. If 

 haryesting had been delayed a week or two, which, with 

 all these yarieties could haye been done without their 

 getting too old to make good hay, the yields would 

 doubtless haye been larger. 



The ayerage yield of the six yarieties samjjled was 

 1,715 pounds of hay per acre on the basis of the weights 

 of the samples 11 days after the yines were cut, or 1,628 

 pounds of the same degi-ee of dryness as the samples 

 when analyzed two years later. 



The following table shows in percentages what pro- 

 portion of the entire plant consists of leayes, pods and 

 blooms, coarse stems, fine stems, fallen leayes and 

 stems, and roots with attached stubble about two inches 

 long. 



