WESTERN LAMB FEEDING 263 



value. The great pea regions are in Canada, in 

 northern Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, in 

 New England and northern New York, and now, 

 more recently, in the high valleys of the Bocky 

 Mountains. 



PEAS IN THE SAN LUIS VALLEY. 



The " Sunny San Luis" is a wide and fertile val- 

 ley about 7,500 feet high in southern Colorado. It 

 has a long, cold but dry and sunny winter, a spring 

 lasting for most of the rest of the year. The nights 

 are always cool in the San Luis. The valley is abun- 

 dantly irrigated by a peculiar system. The soil is 

 soaked by long-continued furrow irrigation till the 

 "sub" or underground water level rises nearly to 

 the surface. Thus, even in a dry climate, there is 

 moisture in abundance for the coolness and mois- 

 ture-loving peas. 



The San Luis Valley was primarily devoted to 

 wheat growing. Peas were first planted to rebuild 

 the depleted soils. This they did, and incidentally 

 in order to consume some of them and get rid of 

 them sheep were turned in. The sheep throve as- 

 tonishingly. When lambs were put on the peas they 

 grew fat with astonishingly little care or expense. 

 Now lambs feeding on peas is a large business in 

 the San Luis Valley each year. 



The usual method is to grow the peas by sowing 

 broadcast and letting them mature, turning in the 

 lambs in the fall, sometimes as early as October, 

 sometimes earlier. The lambs gather the peas from 



