LEGUMES FOR SEED ' 267 



The Maryland Station * compared the yield of wheat, hay, and maize when 

 grown on soils treated as follows: no lime; cowpeas and no lime; cowpeas 

 and lime. Compared with the yield on the unlimed plat, the increase was 

 12 per cent, where cowpeas alone were used and 24 per cent, where cowpeas 

 and lime were used. In hay and fodder there was a loss of 19 per cent, where 

 cowpeas alone were used, but a gain of 24 per cent, where cowpeas and lime 

 were used. In both cases the net gains, from the use of cowpeas with lime 

 and cowpeas alone, were practically identical. 



An average of four years' trial at the Arkansas Station with the cowpea 

 plant against commercial fertilizer for wheat showed the former to be more 

 profitable. The North Carolina Station found cowpea plant with acid phosphate 

 more productive for wheat when tried two years. That station advises that 

 good practise requires that, while striving for one plant food element, such as 

 nitrogen, the other essential elements must be held in mind. 



The Louisiana Station 2 grew sugar cane for three years on first and second 

 year cowpea stubble, and upon plats of the same area in which the cowpea 

 vine had been turned under. With no other treatment the plats in which 

 the pea vines had been turned under were credited with the following in- 

 creased yield: first year, 2.91 tons; second year, 3.69 tons; and third year, 

 0.82 tons. While it is often expensive and difficult, where growth is luxuriant, 

 plowing under cowpeas in the fall is perhaps the most generally accepted 

 economic practise, since the farmer's capital is not infrequently inadequate to 

 the demands of feeding off and applying the manure. Where this is done it 

 will sometimes be beneficial to seed the land to a winter forage crop in order 

 to prevent loss by leaching. 



Oats grown after cowpeas turned under at the Alabama Station 3 

 produced 10.4 bushels of grain and 229 pounds of straw per acre more than 

 oats similarly grown after German millet. Compared with other crops for 

 green manuring for oats, cowpeas ranked as follows: (1) velvet beans, (2) 

 cowpeas, (3) crab grass, weeds, and German millet. 



330. Method of Utilizing the Crop. There are four general 

 ways that the cowpea crop may be utilized in improving the 

 crop-producing power of the soil in connection with the or- 

 dinary system of farm management: 



1 i ) The entire crop may be plowed under while green. 



(2) The crop may be allowed to decay upon the surface of 

 the ground and plowed under the following spring. 



1 Maryland Sta. Bui. No. 66 (1900), p. 127. 



2 Louisiana Sta. Bui. No. 28 (1890). 

 8 Alabama Sta. Bui. No. 95 (1898). 



