176 LEGUMINOUS PLANTS. 



593. This plant is liable to be attacked by a 

 1 weevil, the pea bug, magnified in figure 33, which 

 deposits its eggs in the pod just as the pea is 

 swelling. This is done at night or in cloudy 

 Fig. 33. W eather. As soon as hatched the grub penetrates 

 the young pea and remains there till towards the end 

 of the following winter, when it bores its way out, after 

 having changed into a pupa and cast its skin, leaving a 

 round smooth hole. The germ is left untouched, and 

 pease injured in this way may therefore be used for seed. 



594. Immersing the seed in hot water before planting 

 will destroy the grub, if it still remain in the pea, but 

 this remedy would generally be too late, as the grub 

 usually leaves towards the close of winter. 



595. The insect lives in other plants, so that if destroyed 

 in every pea there would still be enough left to deposit an 

 egg in every pea of the next crop. Hence there is at 

 present no known remedy against the weevil for early 

 sown pease. Those planted late in June are not so liable 

 to be attacked, and pease might perhaps be obtained free 

 from these insects by late planting. 



596. But this vegetable must have abundant moisture 

 while in blossom, or its yield will be small, and the droughts 

 and great heat of July are very injurious to it ; hence it 

 will often be found that the evils of late sowing are greater 

 than its advantages. 



597. The Lentil in some countries forms an important 

 article of food. It requires a warm, light soil, but its 

 yield both of straw and seed is small compared with that 

 of the bean or pea, and there would, probably, be no 

 object in introducing it into our agriculture as a field crop. 



598. The Vetch would doubtless succeed well here as 

 a green food for cows in milk, or for horses. It might be 



