72 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 



ments demonstrate that enough nitrogen remains in 

 the roots, stubble, and fallen leaves to very materially 

 increase the following crop, whatever it may be, that 

 occupies the field. If the hay cannot be profitably 

 utilized, it may be possible to allow the crop to 

 ripen, gather the pods, and then plow under the vines. 

 This plan is often followed. The peas and pods 

 make excellent feed for horses, mules, or hogs, and the 

 shelled peas have a considerable commercial value as 

 human food and for seed. The unripe pods, too, may 

 be picked and eaten like string beans. Farmers 

 sometimes save the expense of gathering the crop 

 by turning in the hogs as the peas begin to ripen. 

 Nowhere will hogs make a more thrifty, rapid growth 

 than when having the range of a pea field. Even if 

 it is impossible to utilize the crop in any of the 

 above ways, the Southern farmer should always plan 

 to plant every acre of his land, that it is possible, in 

 cowpeas every year, for in no other way can he build 

 up its fertility so cheaply and so rapidly. It has 

 been said that a man is a benefactor who causes two 

 blades of grass to grow instead of one. If this say- 

 ing had referred to cowpeas instead, it would have 

 carried a much o^reater truth. 



Velvet Bean (^Mucuna utilis). — This is another 

 rank-growing, tropical, annual, leguminous vine that is 

 exceedingly useful as a soil-improving and cover crop 

 in the far South and in the tropics. It requires 

 rather a long season of warm weatlier and does not 

 succeed well much north of central Alabama and 

 Mississippi. It will flourish on any well-drained 

 soil, even growing on the lightest sands if they con- 



