HAIRY VETCH DESCRIBED 183 



Hairy Vetch (Vicia villosa). There have been intro- 

 duced into America many species and varieties of vetches. 

 Some are sown in the spring and some in the fall. There 

 is also much variation in the vetches themselves, that they 

 might well be divided into varieties of greater or less 

 merit, would anyone take the trouble. The spring-sown 

 vetches are not adapted to our hot dry summers, and prac- 

 tically the one species in cultivation in America is the 

 hairy or winter vetch. Hairy vetch has several very strik- 

 ingly good qualities. It is very hardy. It grows late in 

 the fall and early in the spring. It is tolerant of poor 

 soil and is especially adapted to soils deficient in lime 

 and humus. It grows better in good soil and is grateful 

 for being fed. It is a heavy carrier of root tubercles 

 and these increase more during colder weather on vetches 

 than on most legumes. It makes good forage that is rel- 

 ished by all classes of animals. It gathers more nitrogen 

 than anything else that can be' sown for a winter-cover 

 crop. It is adapted to all the South where it grows near- 

 ly all winter and is hardy in New York. Hairy vetch is 

 a slender, vine-like, trailing plant with pinnate leaves and 

 tendrils on the ends of the leaf stems. Its blooms re- 

 semble small purple or bluish peas, and later pea-like 

 pods with small, round, black pea-shaped seeds. The 

 vines may grow 4,6 or 8 ft. long, then recline on the 

 ground, unless they find something up which to climb. 

 It is useful to sow rye or wheat with vetches so that they 

 may have support. In the north rye may be the better 

 plant; from Tennessee southward wheat is better. The 

 mixture of vetch and wheat makes a prodigious amount 

 of forage for spring cutting which may be used for soil- 



