342 



P IS 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



PI S 



gray, brown, or greenish, with a small oblong umbilicus. 

 The colour of the whole plant is glaucous or hoary green, 

 from a white meal which covers it. It is said to be a native 

 of the south of Europe. Loureiro informs us that it is found 

 in China and Cochin-china, but not frequently, and that it 

 does not appear to be indigenous, though, according toThun- 

 berg, it is cultivated in most provinces of Japan. The fol- 

 lowing are the principal varieties of Garden Peas, arranged 

 in the order of time in which they are gathered for the table: 

 1 . The Golden Hotspur. 2. The Charlton. 3. The Read- 

 ing Hotspur. 4. Master's Hotspur. 5. Essex Hotspur, 

 fi. The Dwarf Pea. 7. The Sugar Pea. 8. Spanish Mo- 

 rotto. 9. Nonpareil. 10. Sugar Dwarf. 11. Sickle Pea. 

 1 -2. Marrowfat. 13. Dwarf Marrowfat. 14. Rose or Crown 

 Pea. 15, Rouncival Pea. 16. Gray Pea. 17. Pig Pea. 

 The Hotspurs, like the Hastings enumerated by Parkinson, 

 have their names from their coming to bear early in the season. 

 The six first varieties are of this' nature, and being low- 

 growers, require sticks only three or four feet high; and the 

 Dwarf Pea not so much. New varieties of these are raised 

 almost every year, which, because they differ in some slight 

 particular, are sold at an advanced price ; but these are not 

 permanent, and without the greatest care will soon degene- 

 rate. The Sugar and Crown Peas agree in the remarkable 

 property of having no hard rigid lining to the legume, so 

 that their pods may be boiled and eaten entire ; they have a 

 sweet and agreeable flavour. Besides the above, we have the 

 early Charlton Hotspur, the early Golden Hotspur. Nichol- 

 son's earliest Hotspur, &c. Of the larger Peas, from No. 1 to 

 13 and 15, there are also several varieties; as, the Large and 

 Dwarf Marrowfat ; the Large and Dwarf Sugar Pea ; the 

 Green and White Rouncival Pea, &c. They all grow tall, 

 and require sticks from five to six, and even seven or eight 

 Teet high. Besides the Common Rose or Crown Pea, there 

 is a variegated one, the Egg Pea ; the Cluster Pea ; the 

 Large Gray Pea ; the Crooked Gray Pea ; and innumerable 

 others, of those which are used in field culture. Mr. Miller 

 has a perennial Pea, which he calls Pisum Americanum, or 

 Cape Horn Pea, from its having been brought by lord 

 Anson's cook when he passed that cape, where this Pea was 

 a great relief to the sailors ; but it is not so good for eating 

 as the worst sort cultivated in England. It is a low trailing 

 plant ; there are two leaflets on each footstalk, those below 

 spear-shaped, and sharply indented on their edges, but the 

 tipper ones small and arrow-pointed : the flowers are blue, 

 each peduncle sustaining four or five of them; legumes taper, 

 nearly three inches long; seeds round, about the size of 

 Tares. Propagation and Culture. It is a common practice 

 with the gardeners in the neighbourhood of London, to raise 

 Peas upon hot-beds, to have them very early in the spring ; 

 in order to which they sow their Peas upon warm borders 

 under walls or hedges, about the middle of October; and 

 when the plants come up, they draw the earth up gently to 

 their stems with a hoe, the better to protect them from frost. 

 In these places they let them remain till the latter end of 

 January or the beginning of February, if they be preserved 

 from frost, observing to earth them up from time to time as 

 the plants advance in height, as also to cover them in very 

 hard frosts with pease-haulm, straw, or some other light cover- 

 ing, to preserve them from being destroyed. TheYi, at the 

 time before-mentioned, they make a hot-bed, in proportion 

 to the quantity of Peas intended. This bed must be made of 

 good hot dung, well prepared, and properly mixed together, 

 that the heat may not be too great. The dung should be 

 laid about three feet thick, or somewhat more, according as 

 the be4s are made earlier or 'later in the season ; when the 



dung is equally levelled, then the earth, which should be 

 light and fresh, but not over-rich, must be laid on about six 

 or eight inches thick, laying it equally all over the bed. 

 This being done, the frames, which should be two or two 

 feet and a half high on the back part, and about eighteen 

 inches in front, must be put on, and covered with glasses : 

 after which it should remain three or four days to let the 

 steam of the bed pass off, before you put the plants therein, 

 observing every day to raise the glasses to give vent for the 

 rising steam to pass off; then, when you find the bed of a 

 moderate temperature for heat, take up the plants with a 

 trowel or some other instrument, as carefully as possible, to 

 preserve the earth to the roots, and plant them into the hot- 

 bed, in rows about two feet asunder; and the plants should 

 be set about an inch distant from each other in the rows, 

 observing to water and shade them until they have taken 

 root ; after which you must be careful to give them air at all 

 times when the season is favourable, otherwise they will draw 

 up very weak, and be subject to grow mouldy, and decay. 

 You should also draw the earth up to the shanks of the 

 plants as they advance in height, and keep them always clear 

 from weeds. Water should be sparingly given, for if too 

 much watered they grow rank, and sometimes rot off at their 

 shanks just above ground. When the sun shines hot, cover 

 the glasses with mats, otherwise their leaves will flag, and 

 their blossoms fall off, without producing pods ; as will also 

 keeping the glasses too close at that season. But when the 

 plants begin to fruit, they should be watered oftener, and in 

 greater plenty than before, for by that time they will have 

 nearly done growing, and the often refreshing them will occa- 

 sion their producing a greater plenty of fruit. The sort of 

 Pea which is generally used for this purpose is the Dwarf, for 

 all the other sorts ramble too much to be kept in frames : 

 the reason for sowing them in the common ground, and after- 

 wards transplanting them on a hot-bed, is also to check their 

 growth, and cause them to bear in less compass ; for if the 

 seeds were sown upon a hot-bed, and the plants continued 

 thereon, they would produce such luxuriant plants as are 

 not to be contained in the frames, and would bear but little 

 fruit. Another method is, to sow them under a south wall at 

 the end of September. Put them very near the wall ; and 

 when they peep out of the ground, cover them with earth as 

 they advance, about an inch thick : in frost protect them 

 with pease-haulm, wheat-straw, or dry fern. About the end 

 of January, if the winter has been mild, the Peas will be some 

 inches above ground ; then make a hot-bed in the manner 

 directed for Cucumbers, except that the dung must be only 

 two feet thick. Let the bed be four feet broad, and cover 

 it with ten inches of light virgin earth. The frames should 

 be two feet high in the back, sloping to fifteen inches in front. 

 Having put these on the hot-bed, tilt up the glasses daily, 

 that the steam may pass off, and when the bed is become of 

 a moderate temperature, take up the Peas with a ball of 

 earth to their roots, and plant them fourteen inches row from 

 row, and four inches plant from plant. Water them mode- 

 rately at planting, but afterwards sparingly. Shade the 

 beds from eleven until the sun is nearly off; and at the 

 same time give them air in mild weather. Cover the dung 

 which surrounds the frames with earth, that when the glasses 

 are tilted up to give air, the Peas may not be blighted with 

 the rancid steam of the dung. Dwarf Peas, and some of 

 the early Hotspurs, may also be sown in pots in September, 

 sinking the pots in the common earth; and when frost sets 

 strong in, the pots may be set under cover in a green-house 

 or glass-case. Make a border in front of the green-house, of 

 good fresh earth; and about the beginning of December take 



