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AGRICULTURAL TEXT-BOOK. 153 



very little additional tillage, other than what the corn alone 

 would receive. After securing enough for seed, the pease are 

 usually fed off the land to hogs, and in that way, are a very 

 important auxiliary to the crop of corn : while the aung, and 

 straw plowed in, manure the land for the next season. 



366. In other southern States, the Cow, Indian, or Stock 

 Pea, is much relied on for pasture, and as a fertilizer. It is 

 sown broadcast, or in drills, or it is hoed in among corn, when 

 the culture of the latter is finished. Under any circumstances, 

 the pea is valuable as a green manure ; but the cost of seed is 

 too great, and the quantity of straw too small to render it pop 

 ular for this purpose. 



367. The great enemy of this vegetable, and one which dis 

 courages its more extended cultivation is the Pea-weevil, or 

 Pea-bug, (Bruchus Pisi.) 



After the pea-vines have flowered, and when the peas are just begin 

 ning to swell in the pod, the weevils deposite their eggs singly, in the 

 pod, just above the pea, chiefly at night, or during cloudy weather. The 

 grubs, as eoon PS hatched, penetrate into the pense; and in time bore a 

 round hole from the centre to the hull, leaving the latter, and generally 

 the germ of the future sprout untouched. The grub is changed to a 

 pupa within its hole in the pea, in the autumn ; and from November to 

 the spring casts its skin again, becomes a beetle, and gnaws a hole 

 through the ttin hull in order to escape, which frequently does not hap 

 pen before the pe&se are planted for an early crop. Pease containing 

 this insect may be detected by a minute hole, and dimple. It may be 

 killed by immersion in very hot wat^r ; but as the mischief is already 

 done, ai d as the weevil lives on other plants, this process can be of little 

 use. 



These attacks may be escaped, it is said, by sowing in the 

 month of June, after the parent insect has ceased to deposito 

 its eggs ; but as the abundance of the crop appears to depend 

 on a certain amount of rain or moisture while it is in blossom, 

 and as great heat is injurious to it in its early growth, equal 

 difficulties or risks exist in this attempt to finu a remedy. Till 

 lately, the district lying along the River Thames in Canada, 



