172 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



clover can do and will do it in a tithe of the time it takes clover to do it, and 

 which will, at the same time, give him a crop of forage of unequaled value 

 for stock of any kind. 



We have been fighting the battle for the cow pea for a generation, and 

 its value as a hay crop is being recognized in localities far North of where 

 we formerly thought it possible to successfully grow it. This has largely 

 been brought about by the introduction of early maturing varieties, like the 

 Warren Extra Early, which ripens in sixty days from the sowing; and thus 

 gives the Northern grower an opportunity to get the crop almost as well as 

 the Southern farmer. Especially in the West has its value been recognized. 

 The cattle feeders of Illinois and Missouri have found that there is no hay 

 which will compare with the cow pea hay in the fattening of beeves for the 

 export trade, and the breeders of horses in Missouri, and even in the blue 

 grass region of Kentucky and Tennessee, have found that pea vine hay will 

 promote the growth of colts as no other feed will. The Missouri Experiment 

 Station has advised the farmers there to substitute the cow pea for timothy 

 as a hay crop. Its great feeding value taken in connection with its great 

 capacity for getting the aerial nitrogen and fixing it in the soil for the suc- 

 ceeding crop, places the Southern cow pea at the very head of all forage 

 crops, for all the country south of the 40th parallel at least; and in 

 light, warm soils considerably north of this parallel. We have had letters 

 from farmers in Southern Michigan and Vermont who are enthusiastic in 

 praise of the value of the Southern pea for their lands. 



But the true home of the cow pea is, of course, in the South, and 

 especially on the sandy soils of the cotton country of the Southern coast re- 

 gion. In this region the cow pea flourishes as it does nowhere else, and 

 produces a hay crop which for feeding value has no equal anywhere, and 

 which, in connection with the corn crop and a permanent pasture of Bermuda 

 grass (which also reaches its greatest perfection in the same region) enables 

 the cotton farmer to feed cattle and sheep more cheaply than they can be fed 

 in any other part of the whole country, and to feed them right where the 

 beef cattle are shipped abroad. 



When once the farmers of the cotton belt realize the great advantage 

 which the cow pea gives them for the economical feeding of stock, they will 

 get to farming better and to growing their staple more cheaply by reason of 

 ,1 lesser dependence on the fertilizer mixer. The cow pea not only makes 

 the most valuable hay, but is the greatest of all nitrogen gatherers, and will 

 enable the cotton farmer to build up his soil more rapidly than the Northern 

 farmer can do it with clover. With, the introduction of the early ripening 

 varieties the cultivation of the Southern pea has been extended far north of 



