766 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



early ones ; but when it is intended to grow them chiefly for covering the ground and for 

 the haulm, then the late varieties claim the preference, and especially the purple grey. 

 Of white pease, to be grown for gathering green, the Charlton is the earliest, and the pearl 

 or common Suffolk the most prolific. When white pease are grown for boilers, that is for 

 splitting, the pearl and Suffolk are also the best sorts. It is supposed by some to be of 

 considerable importance in the economy of a farm, when the nature of the soil is suit- 

 able, to have recourse to the early sorts ; as by such means the crops may in many cases 

 be cut and secured while there is leisure, before the commencement of the wheat 

 harvest. And that where the nature of the soil is dry and warm, and the pea crop of a 

 sufficiently forward kind, it may be easy to obtain a crop of turnips from the same land 

 in the same year, as has been suggested above. But in this view it is the best practice to 

 put the crops in in the row method, and keep them perfectly clean by means of attentive 

 hand and horse hoeing ; as in that way the land will be in such a state of preparation for 

 the turnips, as only to require a slight ploughing, which may be done as fast as the pea 

 crop is removed, and the turnip seed drilled in as quickly as possible upon the newly 

 turned up earth. In some particular districts a third crop is even put into the same 

 land, the turnips being sold off in the autumn and replaced by coleworts, for the purpose 

 of greens in the following spring. This, according to Middleton, is the practice in 

 some places in Middlesex. But it is obviously a method of cultivation that can only be 

 attempted on the warm and fertile kinds of turnip soil, and where the pea crops are 

 early ; on the cold heavy and wet descriptions of land, it is obviously impracticable, and 

 wholly improper. 



4745. The soil best suited for pease is a dry calcareous sand ; it should be in good tilth, 

 not too rich nor dunged along with the crop. In Norfolk and Suffolk pease are often 

 sown on clover leys after one furrow, or after corn crops on two furrows, one given in 

 autumn, and the other early in spring. 



4746. The climate required by the pea is dry and not over warm, for which reason, as 

 the seasons in this country are very often moist and sometimes exceedingly dry and hot 

 in June and July, the pea is one of the most uncertain of field crops. 



4747. The season of sowing must differ considerably according to the intentions of the 

 cultivator. When they are grown for podding early for sale green, they should be sown 

 at different times, from January to the end of March, beginning with the dryest and most 

 reduced sorts of land ; and in this intention in some southern counties they are put in 

 in the autumn. For the general crops from February to April, as soon as the lands can 

 be brought into proper order is the proper season ; the grey sorts being employed in the 

 early sowings, and the white sorts in the later. Young says, that where these crops 

 cannot be put in in February, they should always be completed in the following month. 

 It is observed by the same writer, in sowing on layers, that the white boiling pea, of 

 many sorts and under various names, is more tender than the greys, and various kinds 

 of hog pease ; but he has many times put them into the ground in February, and 

 though very smart frosts followed, they received no injury. He has uniformly found, 

 that the earlier they were sown the better. There is also a particular motive for being as 

 early as possible : that is, to get them off in time for turnips. This is most profitable 

 husbandry, and should never be neglected. If they are sown in this month and a right 

 sort chosen, they will be off the land in June, so that turnips may follow at the common 

 time of sowing that crop. 



4748. Steeping the seed in water \s sometimes practised in late sowings. 



4749. The quantity of seed must be different in different cases and circumstances, and 

 according to the time and manner in which the crop is put into the ground ; but in 

 general, it may be from two and a half to three bushels, the early sowings having the 

 largest proportion of seed. In planting every flag, Young says, two bushels and 

 a half is the usual proportion ; but when drilled at greater distances, six or seven pecks 

 will answer. 



4750. The most common mode of sowing pease is broad-cast; but the advantages of 

 the row culture in the case of a crop so early committed to the soil must be obvious. 

 The best farmers therefore always sow pease in drills either after the plough, the seed 

 being deposited commonly in every second or third furrow, or if the land is in a pulve- 

 rised state by drawing drills with a machine or by ribbing. In Norfolk and Suffolk pease 

 are generally dibbled on the back of the furrow, sometimes one and sometimes two rows 

 on each ; but dibbling in no manner appears to us so well suited for a farmer's pur- 

 pose as the drill. In Kent, where immense quantities of pease are grown both for 

 gathering green and for selling ripe to the seedsmen, they are generally sown in rows 

 from eighteen inches to three feet asunder, according to the kind, and well cultivated 

 between. Pease laid a foot below the surface will vegetate ; but the most approved 

 depth is six inches in light soil, and four inches in clay soil, for which reason they 

 ought to be sown under furrow when the ploughing is delayed till spring. Of all 

 gain, beans excepted, they are the least in danger of being buried. 



